Coast Road, The Burren, Co. Clare

Ireland, April 2013: Recommendations

Touristy Stuff

http://www.theburrencentre.ie/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren

The Burren is actually huge, encompassing what looks to be most of County Clare. Taken as a whole, it's like a geologist's acid trip. Place by place, though, your results may vary: There are stone mountains that are fearsome to stand before, but that can't be easily accessed; there are plains that appear not much rockier than Connemara (or indeed a thousand other Irish townlands). But follow the coast road, heading west from Ballyvaughan and you'll come upon what looks like a seaside resort as imagined by Flintstones animators. Apart from the road shoulder that the County Council has carved out, there's little else to remind you that you're being accommodated as a tourist, and nothing but the Atlantic in the distance (BTW: a longer walk than it looks) to assure you that you're not in Mordor-- or even still on planet Earth.

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