My Ireland Trip Part 2 is here! If you haven’t already, check out my Part 1 recap of the first half of the trip. We last left of in the small town of Kinvara on the West Coast of Ireland. From there, we started to make our way down the Wild Atlantic Coast
While en route to our next destination, we stopped at the most beautiful beach I’ve seen. The name of the beach is Inch Beach and it’s part of the Dingle Peninsula. It has the most breathtaking views of the ocean with a mountain landscape in the background. It also happened to be a gorgeous sunny day when we visited!
After visiting the beach, we made our way to Dingle where we stayed for the next couple of days. The drive was an absolute dream – all I remember is starring out the window with my jaw dropped the entire time. We were driving along the coast on very tiny roads with the ocean on the left and the rolling green hills on the right.
DINGLE, COUNTY KERRY
As you can see, Dingle is a coastal town full of colorful buildings (and people). We had the most amazingly fresh seafood almost every meal and enjoyed pub hopping with the locals & tourist along the way. It’s a must visit if you are ever in Ireland and can make it work.
At this point, we were right in the middle of our trip and desperately needed some healthy activity from all of the pub visits and delicious food. One day in Dingle, we hiked Mt. Brandon and it was a great decision. The hike took about 4 hours total and it was lead by a local tourist. It was just Alex and I in the group, so it was a great time chatting with the local hiker on the history of the mountain, the country’s culture and language. The weather was unfortunately not the greatest, so we didn’t see a view when we made it to the top and most of the hike included fog and rain. I didn’t mind because the wind and rain strangely felt familiar being back in this type of weather 5 years later. I also loved that during our hike, we ran into sheep roaming freely and comfortably. One even made it to the top of the mountain with us!
After out hike, we drove our way around The Slea Head to see great views of the ocean. WARNING- the roads are extremely narrow and you may feel like you are driving off the cliff at any moment…….but that’s the fun of it!
After a wonderful time in Dingle, we started to head West to Kinsale and Cork. In both of those places, we stayed in unique but great Airbnbs during our visits.
KINSALE, COUNTY CORK
The first Airbnb was in a cabin in Kinsale. It was a great getaway from the downtown area and the cabin had a cozy feel located right along the water. Not to mention, the owners dog constantly came over to play with us.
CORK CITY, COUNTY CORK
We then traveled to Cork and that’s where we stayed in a tree house for one of the nights we were there. It’s one of the coolest things I’ve experienced. The owner did such a great job on the tree house that we felt more taken care of than some of the hotels we stayed in. I highly recommend staying there if you plan on traveling to Cork!
After a few great days in Cork, we made our way to Dublin which was our very last city on our two week trip. I will say by the time we got there, we were a bit tired from traveling so much. However, Dublin is always a great city to walk around to see the sites and it was the perfect place to visit at the end of the trip.
Our trip to Ireland was an amazing one and an adventure I’ll always remember. It was great going back to the country I lived in for 4 months and to revisit some of my favorite spots while seeing new ones. Ireland will always have a special place in my heart and I can’t wait to go back!
xx
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