Ireland, Day 2: Sligo to Roundstone, Part 2

We left Cong and continued south and west, through some beautiful, wild country across bogs, through some fine fishing lakes and onward through the Twelve Bens Mountains (2000-foot quartz peaks). The photos speak for themselves, I think.

It was a bit rainy here and there, but then this was Ireland, and rain is an expected part of almost every day.

See the tiny sign for Roundstone?We were close to our destination at last!

 A few more bends of the road,

And we arrived. Why did we choose Roundstone? Simple. There is an older movie (2008, I think) called The Matchmaker. We've watched it at least 8 times, mainly because of the awesome scenery. I wanted to see the place it was filmed for myself, just as last year I wanted to see Port Isaac in Cornwall, where Doc Martin is filmed.

Roundstone lived up to expectations.

Our b&b for the next two nights. Great place to stay! Tea and scones on arrival, view from those windows over the water, and a fine breakfast each morning. Perfect.

Looking back toward the Twelve Bens. See how the clouds mirror the shape of the mountains?

This was one of the places featured in the movie.

It's now a cool antique shop. We browsed but didn't buy. I was amused to see West Virginia Fenton and Anchor Hocking glass there!

Such views as this abounded.

Another view of the Connemara mountains.

Fishing used to be the main industry here, but today it's tourism. About 90% of the homes in the area are owned by tourists, and there are lots of bed-and-breakfasts. It's a good and bad thing, I guess. We were there at the beginning of the off season so it was pretty quiet, thank goodness.

Another place featured in the movie, O'Dowd's.

The Shamrock, a local pub, was a fine place to spend the evening. We got in conversation with a couple young guys and had a blast, especially talking about ghosts with them. Yes, there are ghosts here in Roundstone. One said, "Aw, don't talk to me about the ghosties!" And then proceeded to tell us about his haunted house, and the spooky bog road. Great fun. That's an antique Turkish gun over the mantle; we were curious about it, and the owner didn't know anything of its history, but we had wifi so a shoutout to my Facebook friends and a little additional research turned up the fact that it's pre-1800's. How it ended up in little Roundstone, I have no idea.

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We were up early to go to the Aran Islands the next morning. The view from our window showed what was coming weather-wise, but we weren't going to let a little rain get in our way.

Next post: On Inish Mor.

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