A year ago today, my husband and I were enjoying Scotland on what ended up being the trip – and Honeymoon – of a lifetime!
It’s very strange to think about being so far away from home now, as in these quarantine times, a trip to the grocery store seems like an event. To commiserate – or maybe to just escape the boredom of constantly being at home – I’m going to finally post about the last day of our Honeymoon.
On our last day in Ireland, we decided to drive around and just enjoy the beauty of where we were and to hit our favorite spots before flying out in the early morning. It was a chilly day as a sudden rainstorm had swept through Doolin the night before.
We wrapped up warmly and started out, intent on enjoying an easy-going day. Our first stop was to see Poulnabrone – a portal tomb constructed from great slabs of limestone over 5000 years ago. To date, the remains of over 30 people have been discovered at this site. It was amazing to see and to wonder at the history of it. The site also had plaques telling about the landscape and ecosystem of the Burren, which was interesting considering we had been staying in the Burren our entire duration in Ireland.
From there, we finally decided to check out the beach closest to us. I loved every beach we went to in Ireland – they were all different and beautiful in their own way – but it is easy to see why Fanore beach is a favorite of the locals. The beach itself is made up of fragments of seashells, making it some of the coolest sand I’ve ever seen. Even in the cold of the day, we saw surfers out enjoying the waves and people out splashing and fishing in the surf.
We spent a good bit of time at Fanore beach – we seriously got a ton of photos of it – before driving back to the baby cliffs that were our first stop after we landed in Ireland. I left a piece of my heart with these cliffs. The wind was chilly and wild that day and caused the waves to splash violently against the base of the cliffs. It was the type of moment Irish cliffs are known for in the movies and exactly the thing I was hoping to experience in Ireland.
We started out walking along the top of the cliffs, the way we did on that first day, but soon our curiosity and desire for adventure had us exploring further until we found ourselves winding down through little pathways in the cliff. We crawled down until we found ourselves in a little cove area. I sat and just relished the waves splashing against the rock. I was close enough to taste and smell the sea – and it is a feeling and moment I will never forget. The sea has always held a place in my heart and just being able to watch the way it beat and rolled, knowing it has been dancing that way against the rock way longer than I have been alive, moved me in a way I cannot explain. So, it is not an exaggeration to say, I left a piece of my heart with those cliffs.
And that was the end of our trip. We enjoyed a final dinner in our favorite pub and went back to our little cottage to pack our things for a very early departure the next morning. Who knew as we snuggled in our cottage that I would be pregnant with our daughter a year later? Who knew that a year later, the world would suddenly and drastically be different and that we would all be waiting to be allowed out of our homes and back to our normal routine? It’s a reminder to take the blessings as they come and to cherish all the great moments – like standing on the edge of a beautiful, Irish cliff watching the wild waves crash.
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