Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Driving to Dingle (Day 11)

On Monday, Nana, Papa, Alex, my nephew, and I headed for the town of Dingle. Dingle is the starting place for a scenic drive around the Dingle peninsula.


We had to keep stopping the car so I could take photos. Isn't Ireland beautiful?

Hydrangeas are one of my FAVORITE flowers. And, they are everywhere in Ireland and Scotland. I couldn't believe how many blooms would be on each bush! You could hardly see the leaves!!!
We stopped at this windmill on the way. There is a museum attached which is mainly about the Irish Potato Famine.

Alex LOVED grinding wheat inside of the windmill.

More of the beautiful countryside!

Alex had complained of being carsick on our drive and she "proved it" (if you know what I mean) right when we parked in Dingle. So, she messed up her pullover and it was REALLY COLD out. I let her wear my jacket as we searched for a store. We found these cute matching pullovers at Kerry Woolen Mills. (Not at this outlet, but we posed here when we saw the sign.)


We had planned on going further this first day, but since Alex was sick we decided to stay the night in Dingle. I'm so glad we did! Dingle is a port and we found a hotel right by the water. We went walking around that evening. Here, Alex is posing on a statue of Fungi. Fungi is a bottle-nosed dolphin that lives in Dingle Harbor and enjoys playing around people. Unforunately, I didn't realize you could take a 45 minute boat trip out to see him and you are guaranteed to see Fungi or get your money back... and they've never had to give a refund! You can also rent wet suits and go out and play in the water near Fungi.

Another view of the harbor.

The town of Dingle.

That night, we spent some time in the pub area of our hotel listening to live local music. It was so much fun!!! About half of the people there were kids and many of them were dancing. People were welcome to get up and play an instrument with the band or sing with them and several people did. I loved this Irish music and it was a wonderful evening.


This is the electric water heater at our hotel. I think every place we stayed had hot water like this. You push the "start-stop" button and you have hot water! We always left them on "medium" flow and left the temperature dial alone. It was a great shower! In the house in Limerick, you had to turn a power switch on in the hallway before you could turn this heater on.


And, I'll leave you with just a very short taste of some live, Irish music.

6 comments:

live4evermom said...

How cool! Fun music, great sites to see and beautiful flowers. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

What beautiful sights you have seen. I am so envious!
Blessings
Diane

Rhonda said...

Sorry to hear that Alex got car sick, but it looked like she recovered quickly. Thank goodness, I am sure that she did not want to miss out on the fun. I think that Dingle has been my fav place so far. Those photos are just beautiful!

Julie said...

Oh I just love visiting here! Thanks for all these wonderful photos. I loved the windmill, the flowers, photos of your kiddos, and the video was great too. I wanna go and see all this for myself now :-)!
Have a blessed weekend, Julie
www.homeschoolblogger.com/oldschoolmarm

Myra said...

I LOVE you photos of Ireland. I was lucky to visit it in both 2005 and 2007, along with Scotland, England, and Wales. I just love the scenery. I saw places, in your photos, that I had visited too. Thanks for giving me a bit of nostalgia.

Robin said...

I love your matching sweatshirts! And thank you for posting the music. That's so cool.
And I want them to have those water heaters in every hotel everywhere! I hate taking tepid showers. I can have a nice short one as long as it's warm.

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