A Wee Little Trip to Ireland - Day 6 - Doolin to Dublin

Our last full day in Ireland. Sad, but true. We slept away most of the morning as we heard the rain coming down again outside our hotel window. We would have loved to explore more of this quaint little town of Doolin (artist rendering right) if the weather had been better, or even stay a couple more days. We did get up in time to grab some complimentary breakfast from Hotel Doolin and awaited our ride back to Dublin which would arrive sometime around noon. We were informed by the folks at Extreme Ireland that we would be taking a Paddywagon tour bus (remember, the folks with the bright green buses we used on our visit to Blarney Castle) back instead of one of theirs. Seemed a little odd since we figured they were in direct competition with each other. but again the Irish are very cordial - even in the business world. The Paddywagon bus arrived earlier than we expected and that was because their tour had not visited the Cliffs of Moher before

lunch like ours did. So, we got a second visit to the Cliffs of Moher (photo above) for no extra cost! Might sound redundant, but with the weather changing so often in Ireland, a second visit was vastly different from the day before. The wind was howling on the clifftops and while the rain had let up during our visit it was very damp in spots including a natural wind tunnel that was blowing surf up 400' or so from below. Totally amazing! (video below) More luck of the Irish was with us by riding back with this particular Paddywagon Tour because the driver, Tom, was the best guide we had the whole trip. He had great stories, jokes and tidbits of info he shared along the ride back in fairly dismal weather. This certainly made the time pass quicker. We stopped again at Bunratty Castle as we did a few days before, but instead of going back to Durty Nelly's, we wondered into another nearby pub called The Creamery Bar - guess what? large, clean and friendly. We we got back to Dublin around 7 PM, we had a decision to make. We could head on out to the Dublin Airport Hilton where we were staying tonight a good distance from downtown Dublin, or we could hang around in Dublin a few more hours for a last farewell. Since the place where we had our best meal, The Bull & Castle, was just up the street, we decided that dinner and a few drinks before heading out toward the airport would be worth dragging our luggage a few blocks to it. We felt a little goofy with our luggage in tow, but the folks at The B & C thought nothing of it and gave us a table with room to store the bags while we enjoyed dinner...did we mention the Irish are very friendly? More Irish microbrews and whiskey were had as well another great dinner. We are definitely gonna miss this place.

A cabstand was just outside and we made good time to the Airport Hilton which looked like it was fairly new and actually in a nice neighborhood area near the airport, but not right up on it (i.e. no jets buzzing the rooftops all night). We organized and packed for our trip home tomorrow thinking back on what a great time we had. We would love to return to Dublin again and perhaps travel north to Belfast and visit The Giant's Causeway on the northern shores of the island, as well as the southern area of Kilkenny that gets high praise as well.

Thank you, Ireland, for a wonderful trip that we will never forget.