Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Walking Around Clifden

We had a leisurely morning, taking our time with our simple breakfast of bran flakes, bananas, toast, and coffee. We made sandwiches, filled our stainless steel mugs with water, and headed out at about 11. We started by walking down Market Street. This is the view of one end of Market Street from one of the windows in the apartment.

This is a closer view of the yellow building and the business to the left of it. I liked the 'victuals and vegetables' under John Malone's name.
We saw these stone sheep outside a shop.
We walked down past Market Square and came to a fork in the road. Left is Beach Road and right is the Sky Road. We opted for Beach Road today because it was a bit shorter and we wanted to walk around town a little more afterwards. We plan to walk Sky Road tomorrow. Just after the fork in the road we came across this memorial Celtic cross.
We came to the quay area where there were a lot of boats tied up alongside this interesting house. I like the porthole style windows. They had blinds in them--must've been custom made.
The birds were hanging around on this beehive thing out in the water.
I was pleased to see this sign. Most people did drive at a reasonable speed, but we did have one person who had his lead foot firmly planted on the gas pedal.
The road leads to a small beach, a cafe, and a lifeboat station. We turned around and headed back towards town, passing this heron standing in the water.
I had the thought that this might make an interesting needle felted piece. Might have to give it a try sometime!

Coming back we could see the back end of town.
Back up to Market Square, where Bill was able to call in at the jeweler on the corner and get a new battery for his watch.

 There are a lot of old bikes around that have been turned into plant stands. There's one right outside the jeweler,
and these, just down the street from our B&B.
We climbed up a side street and at the top saw these beautiful hydrangeas--I love the colour! On my screen it is showing a little more pink than in real life where they are more of a deep red.

Coming down the street we got a nice view of the opposite end of Market Street from where we started this morning.
On our way back we picked up food for lunches and suppers for the rest of our time here and for the journey home and we admired a lot of art in a lot of windows. We walked a 6 mile loop around Clifden and along Clifden Bay. It was a perfect day for a walk--comfortable temperatures and no sun. We got home and I made a nice cuppa. We both like the town a lot and it seems so quiet. Must be interesting for the locals to live in a  place that is crowded with tourists for part of the year and then shuts down and get really quiet for the rest of the time. We wondered whether by this time people are sick of tourists because, with a few exceptions, people here are generally not as 'nice' as they are in our neck of the woods (or Ballinrobe and Killybegs). We are so used to smiles and exchanging pleasantries (usually about the weather) with people that we pass while walking that it is sort of jarring to walk by people who silently stare straight ahead with grouchy expressions on their faces. Oh well, they just make the people who DO smile and comment on weather stand out more!

Tonight we are relaxing in our comfortable little apartment with our feet up--reading, crocheting, coffee, music are all on the agenda. Hope you have a pleasant day/evening too!

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