Day 6: Westport to Donegal

We got an early start today, since we had a long way to drive, and it was beautiful out. We departed from Westport around 10 AM, after breakfast and such, and drove up through the mountains to County Donegal.

There wasn't much that looked exciting in the small towns along the road (since we're in the sparsely populated area of Ireland...), we pretty much drove straight through to Sligo, only stopping to take pictures of the ocean, mountains, surrounding countryside, etc.



Oh, and I found the machine that trims the hedges along the sides of the road:


Once in Sligo, we parked in the middle of town and walked around a bit. Sligo is the "only sizable town in Northwest Ireland" with a population of 19,000, so it was a bustling metropolis compared to the rest of today.


After lunch, we took a guided tour of Sligo Abbey, which is positioned oddly in the middle of a residential block. There are people who have a 15th century Abbey (mostly ruins, anyway) behind their houses, basically. It was very odd.



Leaving Sligo, we got a bit lost and took a nice tour on the edge of a lake, and ended up on the wrong side of the town. Not like it was a bad neighborhood, more like south instead of north. Northwest of Sligo, we went out to Rosses Point, which is a very expensive-looking area, out in the bay, with beaches and such.



On the way back from Rosses Point, I made Sabrina drive for the first time. It was so good that I decided to get some of it on video. She's much more appreciative of my awesome driving skills now.


Once we got to Donegal, we walked around town a bit, got a map, found the hotel, then took a nap.


After the nap, we found some dinner, then walked around Donegal Friary. The story of this medieval ruin is a lot like some of the others we've seen: built some time in the 13th, 14th, 15th century, destroyed by the invading English/Vikings/Normans, rebuilt by the church/friars/monks, etc. There were some really cool local kids hanging out in the ruined Friary, drinking Jager and smoking. I would have gotten a picture of them, but I wasn't wearing shoes that were conducive to running away if necessary.


We briefly investigated the Waterbus, which seems to be some sort of bay tour boat, but I don't think we'll have time for a journey tomorrow. These pictures were taken at about 10:30 PM.





As always, more pictures are available in the photo gallery. We're up to about 700 or so photos, and we still have a few days left. Aren't digital cameras great? 10 years ago, this would be $200 worth of photo-developing.