Aran Island

We were up early this morning to catch our flight over to Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands. It was raining all the way to the airport, and forecast to continue. We arrived at the airport (using the term pretty loosely) and checked in.

Here's the inside.

A few minutes before our 8:30 AM flight, they took us out to the plane, an 8-passenger Britten-Norman Islander.

By this time, the rain had stopped, so we loaded up for the ten-minute flight. In this mid-flight picture, you can see that the sky is starting to clear to the southwest.

We landed at the Inishmore Aerodrome, shown below.

A bus was waiting outside to take us the two miles to Kilronan, where we rented a pair of bikes for the day. At this point, the sky was clear and the sun was out... nice!

Most people take the ferry over to the island, but the first one doesn't arrive until 10:40 or so. Since we had a two-hour head start, we headed right to the most popular attraction, Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric fort originally constructed about 1100 BC.

It's built on the edge of a 300-ft high cliff that drops straight into the Atlantic.

From there, we rode over to the Seven Churches. Despite the name, there are actually only two churches, Teampall Bhreacain, begun in the 8th century, and Teampall an Phoill from the 15th century.

The tour buses from the ferry passengers were out in full force by this time, so we stopped in here for a delicious lunch, including homemade rhubarb cobbler for dessert!

After lunch, we headed to the wormhole. We don't really have any idea why it's called that, but it's a naturally-formed rectangular pool in a ledge on the edge of the island. It's fed by a cave underneath the pool, so the water ebbs and flows with the waves from the ocean.

Our next stop was the seal beach, where we were able to see a few seals popping their heads out of the water.

It was almost time to catch the bus back to the airport, so we returned our bikes and stopped in to a few of the stores while we waited for the bus. Once back in the airport, we were on the plane in about three minutes... we remarked that this is the way air travel should be! Once airborne, we were able to see the other Aran islands (Inis Oirr is the one visible on the right side of the picture) and the Cliffs of Moher in the distance.

After our return to the mainland, we returned to Galway to explore a bit more and have dinner.

Tomorrow we head back to Dublin, with a few stops along the way... see you then.