We had a reasonably early start from Coleraine and headed to Londonderry. We had planned a quick visit but ended up walking the city walls and learning a lot about the history of this troubled city over the centuries.
After that we seemlessly crossed the border onto the Republic, courtesy of the common travel area, and progressed through Letterkenny to get onto the Wild Atlantic Way. Although some of the sights are fantastic the actual route seems to visit every little cove along the coast so we rapidly realised that we would need to short circuit some of the route and focus on the highlights. We thoroughly enjoyed a circumnavigation of Horn Head with lunch at a lovely little cove, our only company being a couple who seemed to be sizing up a plot to build a house and a young couple cycling the route (who we saw a few times). It looks grey but it was still well over 25 degrees.
We then drove on through Donegal where we noticed enormous numbers of houses - no towns or villages, just enormous number of houses spread over large areas of land, plus the usual caravans etc as well. A lot of them seemed empty. We stopped very briefly at a headland called Bloody Fireland. There is obviously some unrest over this as we found protest posters here stating 41% of these houses were ready.
Driving in the afternoon was interesting with more narrow and very twisty roads, and maximum concentration needed at all times from Howard. However it was reat fun to have the top down and enjoy the wonderful weather.
We were going to go to Sligbh Liag But we just couldn’t do it. The highest cliffs in Europe, some 1900 ft..
Our hotel in Donegal, the Mill Park, is fantastic with our room in reality being a suite.
With recommendations from the receptionist we headed into town for a drink and then dinner. Our first thought was to go to the Castle Inn because it had outside seating but I decided against that because the only space would have been sharing a large table at the side of the road (more of this later).
We had a drink in McCaffertys and another in the Reel Inn whilst sitting on a platform over the River Eske, magical.
Dinner was at the Chandpur, a frequent winner of the best Indian food in Ireland, and it was excellent.
Anyway, on the way home, we found the square in Donegal blocked by Garda and saw that a car had apparently reversed at speed and demolished the very table at the Castle Inn which we would have been at. A very narrow escape.
