slowly she turned
Living the Slow life in North Carolina
Author: Laurie
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After a short ferry ride across Lough Foyle, we were in the United Kingdom. The currency was now pound sterling and the speed limits and distances were in miles. The feel of the country was different. The houses tended to be larger, the fields tended to be fenced instead of walled. And yet the sheep…
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On Monday morning, I awoke early with what I at first thought was a hangover. It wasn’t that we had drank that much on any one day or night, but over the course of the week I had drank more than usual so I thought maybe my body was catching up and punishing me. It…
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The idea was that we were going to take the “Inishowen 100 Scenic Drive” up to the northernmost point in Ireland, Malin Head, but a wrong turn changed our plans. And as it often happens, the wrong turn was not a bad idea at all. We ended up on a road splendid in its isolation…
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The Grianan of Aileach was what led me to choose this area for part of our visit. I knew that the O’Neills were one of the great Irish families; in fact, they are one of the few families that the banshee cries for at their deaths. From the Wikipedia article: “Legend has it that for…
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When we arrived at the Lake of Shadows Hotel in Buncrana, we stowed our stuff, took a walk downtown to look around, then headed back to the hotel to have dinner. It was one of the least expensive but most delicious dinners we had in Ireland! After eating the seafood salad below, I had a…
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The highlight of our drive from Galway in the central west of Ireland to Buncrana on the Inishowen Peninsula in the north of Ireland and just to the west of Northern Ireland was definitely the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery near Sligo. To think that we nearly skipped this when our GPS steered us wrong! We saw…
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The best place on the bus tour was the Burren. I didn’t expect that. What a wonderful weird wild landscape, with its sad, usually pointless stone “famine walls,” that the starving Irish people were forced to build as a means of getting a little to eat from the British landowners during the Great Hunger. I’ve…
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When we got back from the bus tour, we walked to the city center of Galway. There are two colleges in Galway and the students had just finished their final exams, so it was hopping by the time we walked back to Asgard House. After a disappointing visit to a pub where the live trad…
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Mary at Asgard House really took care of us. At this point I was overwhelmed and exhausted, and faced with way more choices of what to do with our one day in the area than I could handle. After serving us a terrific breakfast in her lovely sunroom, Mary called Galway Bus Tours and had…
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We headed for the Conor Pass, which is the highest mountain pass in Ireland, and we soon had to stop for me to take some Dramamine. Thank God no buses or large trucks were allowed on this road, since its curvy stone wall and cliff lined roads barely provided enough room for two small cars…
slowly she turned 