(Ireland trip) Cliffs of Moher

The Cliffs of Moher - finally!

I guess, that's what my audience - if I happen to have such a thing as an audience - has been waiting for all the time: everyone already knows Dublin, and hardly anyone is incredibly interested in getting to know Ennis, I suppose. But, big but, the Cliffs of Moher are about the place to visit in Ireland.
Actually, they were a reason for me to return to Ireland, because I had not managed to go there during my Erasmus semester. Of course, this was not the only reason (and not the only place I hadn't managed to visit, either - shame on me), but at least one reason of several ones.
As I already mentioned in the overview post, the original plan was to go to the cliffs with Bus Éireann. That's why we went to Ennis in the first place: there is a bus to the cliffs. Or, let's say: there should be a bus. Since we happened to be in Ennis at one of the two days of the bus strike, there was no bus, actually. We only found out about that on the day when we came to Ireland, so we had already booked our tickets online. Like seriously, why is it even possible to book tickets for days where there are no buses? Was Bus Éireann technically incompetent and therefore unable to block the online booking for these two days? Or did they just have other problems than stupid Germans booking tickets for days of strike ...?
Anyway, we found a private bus tour company that still had spaces left for Saturday and even offered a pick-up from the Rowan Tree Hostel. Of course, they weren't on time (we were not exactly sure whether the bus was supposed to be at the hostel at 10:35 or 10:45, but it was late anyway), so we spent some time standing in the rain watching cars passing by ...
When the bus finally came and we got on it, we realised that it was a kind of small tour company. I mean, the bus itself wasn't even that small, but there were only 9 people in it - including the 3 of us and the bus driver / tour guide. The driver was obviously Irish. The 8 people going on this tour were 7 Germans - and Laetitia! When the driver let her know that she was highly outnumbered by Germans, Laetitia was like: "Yeah, I'm used to that ..." :-D

Since this was a guided bus tour, we didn't only drive to the cliffs and back, but also made some photo stops (and a lunch stop) on the way there. And the driver was complaining a bit about the seeming lack of excitement of the majority. The standard problem on bus tours with Germans, I guess ... :-P

First, we stopped at a castle. I couldn't remember the name, so I actually had to google it. Seems to be Leamaneh Castle (that's at least in the right county: Clare) or something like this.

As you can imagine, I was terribly excited by this ruin of a castle. But there we had at least the chance to get a proper group picture (i. e. no selfie!).

Afterwards, I turned my head away from the castle and to the way more interesting other side:

Oh, cows!

Oh, focused cow!

Later on, there was a stop at a coffee shop. I was more interested in the toilet than in coffee and cake ... Oh, and there were more cows in between the car/bus park and the shop:

They were cute baby cows!

I know, it's hard to see ... (btw, there's our bus in the background)

... but if you watch closely, you'll see ... 

... they are so fluffy! ^_^

We also passed a lot of cows on the bus drive. Unfortunately, our tour guide always mentioned stuff like, "And this is beef cattle." Good thing that I don't eat beef ...

The next stop was at Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. There are quite some tombs in Ireland, I already noticed last semester ...

Then, we finally saw the first cliffs. Not the cliffs (of Moher), but still cliffs. It was a really beautiful coastal line.

While I was busy taking pictures of the landscape, the others were busy taking pictures of me taking pictures and trying not to fall off the cliffs ...

Focus: do not struggle and fall on the way back!

Afterwards, we finally went on the the actual destination of this tour:

The Cliffs of Moher!

(Brace yourselves, plenty of landscape pictures are coming!)

Since the cliffs are such a touristy place, they are secured at the beginning. So there are walls or fences between you and the cliffs and lots of signs saying, "Do not climb the wall!". But what made it even more touristy was the fact that there was WiFi!

Wtf ...?

Seriously, why would you need WiFi there?

However, I found all of this a bit too touristy. The walls and the grass between me and the cliffs were a disaster for my pictures. Either you had a lot of grass in the pictures or you had to zoom and then had a narrowed view in the pics. I appreciated neither of the possibilities ...

Wall and grass. -.-

A lot of grass. -.-'

Narrowed view. -_-

The best I could make out of it under these conditions:

Afterwards, before I ultimately lost my head, we went to the less secured area. In order to do that, we had to pass a sign saying, "Attention! Farmland beginning here!"
So I was finally able to take pictures without having to avoid walls all the time ...

Well, and after we had already seen some cows today, we could also spot sheep on the farmland:

Oh, sheep!

Aren't they cute?

It seems as if I was performing the best stunts when taking pictures. So, again, the others did not only take pics of the landscape but also of me taking pictures of the landscape.

I didn't even notice Michael taking this one ...

When we had to go back to the established part and the visitor centre in order to not miss our bus back to Ennis, the sun finally came out and made the environment look mystically: