We stopped off on the left-hand side of the road, leaning our rented bicycles against an old, crumbling stone wall. Leslie got the map out of the canvas backpack I’d been carrying for the past two hours, and Faith took it over to the road signs across the small intersection to try to decipher where we were.
Unfortunately, our map was in English, and the signs were in Gaelic, the ancient and entirely unfathomable Irish language.
The three of us, only recently friends but after just 36 hours of traveling together, incredibly close, decided to ignore the problem for the time being and instead dug into the apple tarts with fresh cream that we’d picked up the day before from the village bakery in Dingle.
We’d found ourselves in Dingle — and, subsequently, on this 25-mile bike ride – after deciding somewhat spontaneously to take off for a girls’ weekend away from industrial Dublin. Our first idea was Galway, but since we had the luxury of three days, we decided to go a bit further and find a small town to spend the weekend in.
After a four-hour train trip and hour-long bus ride Friday, we had arrived on the other side of the country. Dingle, located on the Dingle Peninsula in Country Kerry, is a town with a funny name, but it’s also undeniably Irish. The signs in town are all in Gaelic, and it’s surrounded by green hills, dotted with sheep. Fishing boats, which make up a vital part of the village industry, fill a harbor that stretches out to the sea, and fishermen in wellies and tan wool sweaters walk the piers each morning and night. The town itself is a 10-block conglomeration of one-way streets and vividly-painted shops in turquoise and magenta and yellow.
We spent the weekend not believing our eyes.
Friday took us on a trip to the town chipper (fish and chips restaurant), where our cod and smoked haddock – battered and fried before our eyes – had been caught just the day before.
We explored the town and watched the sunset sink down beneath the hills surrounding the harbor.
Our plans to find trad music (traditional Irish music) later were thwarted, however, by a group of men who pulled us in to Foxy John’s, Dingle’s hardware store/pub/bike rental shop, where they were celebrating their 50-year-old friend’s bachelor party. Bizarre?
Yes. But Faith, a bold girl from Queens, was down for their offer of a pint, and Leslie and I followed after promises they were harmless. And they were: They told great stories, bought us a round and capped off their night by singing us dirty AC/DC lyrics after we told them we were looking for traditional Irish music.
It was the strangest Friday night I’ve had in a good while, but undeniably one of the most entertaining.
Saturday morning arrived, surprisingly, with only a 10 percent chance of rain, which in Ireland means clear skies for the next five minutes. We decided to chance the inevitable possibility of a late-afternoon shower and rent bicycles to take the 25-mile trip around the peninsula. It was absolutely incredible – the scenery was what’s always filmed in movies and photographed in coffee table books, but you don’ t quite believe it exists until you see it for yourself.
We took the ride at a leisurely pace to give ourselves time to pull of to the side of the road and explore a rocky beach, see a thatched roof cottage and make our way up to the ruins of a castle – a venture that eventually failed but allowed us to meet the quintessential old Irish farmer. We were too distracted by his Hunters, tweet cap, yellow sweater and wool sports coat and couldn’t understand a single word of what he was saying in his thick Irish accent.
Eventually, we wound up with our pastries on the stone wall, utterly lost in translation.
The sugar rush helped make up our minds: We simply turned right until we wound up back in Dingle. To our surprise, it worked, and we even managed to avoid the rain.
The second success of the day came after we’d finished our harbor-side dinner of freshly-caught Dingle Bay grilled salmon in white wine sauce. Fortified by our first “real” meal since arriving in Ireland, we decided to head off in search of trad music. In Dingle, there’ s one pub for every 38 people – 52 pubs in total – so there were plenty of options, but we’ d heard one called the Small Bridge was fantastic.
We ordered our pints and sat in the corner of the pub as the fiddler, guitarist, drummer and harpist began. It was absolutely perfect. I’m a girl who loves a good dance beat as much as the next, but after walking to the other side of the pub to order a drink and hearing Rihanna, I actually caught myself thinking how terrible her music was. I guess there’s a time and place for everything.
By pint number two, we’d all developed raging crushes on the guitarist, a craggy-but-handsome Irishman with salt-and-pepper hair. By pint three, we had decided he was George Clooney (a fact disproved upon reviewing pictures the next morning). Faith had also fallen in love with the bartender, a lanky lad named Patrick (what else?). He seemed equally taken with her and would come running over to our table like an adorable puppy the minute she yelled “ PAHHHTRICK!” in her strong Queens accent. Despite her abuse, numbers were exchanged, with Faith calling out “Marry me!” as he walked away, luckily out of earshot.
Verdict: Faith fell in love with the bartender, we crashed a 50-year-old’s bachelor party, explored rural Ireland and had the best fish ‘n’ chips ever made on this earth. Successful girls’ weekend.
