Sligo and more Irish coast

What a lovely Irish weekend we just had – cute towns, sandy beaches, and dramatic cliffs punctuated by heavy but tasty food and creamy ales. Life is good.

Our first stop was Sligo, a small city in northwest Ireland. The guidebooks had mixed things to say, but we found Sligo to be a very nice place to spend an afternoon wandering around. It was a town with personality.

When the B&B; we booked fell through, we went for a last-minute room at The Glass House in the middle of Sligo. The funky architecture makes for some lovely rooms, even if they are starting to wear a little around the edges. We lucked out and got the top corner room, giving us two giant window-walls from which to enjoy the view (and the late-night fireworks).

Sligo had plenty of charming, reasonably-priced cafes and bars (including Garavogue), but all the restaurants we checked out seemed ridiculously expensive. We had a fabulous time watching the drunken locals over a pub dinner at The Ark Bar, and then retired to our room early to watch Norway sweep the Eurovision. Poor Germany couldn’t even be helped by Dita von Teese.

The next day we enjoyed a big Irish breakfast before heading north along the coast into County Donegal. The drive brought us into a Gaeltacht, or region where Irish is the primary language spoken. But we heard a lot more baaing then speaking while we were there.

We also drove past several peat bogs.

Our main destination was Slieve League, reportedly the highest cliff face in Europe. The sun kindly came out for a couple hours so we could enjoy the view. While not as tidy and regular as the more famous Cliffs of Moher, these cliffs were still quite striking.

On our way back to Dublin we stopped in Cavan to find some dinner, and lucked out with our choice of The Black Horse, which had the most delicious pub grub I’ve ever eaten.