The Dingle Way - Walking Coastal Ireland in the Rain

During my quick trip to Ireland last fall, there were a few things that I just had to see. At the top of the list was the Dingle Peninsula. With its picturesque coast line, ancient stone walls, quaint villages and sheep fields sloping towards the sea, it is the Ireland I imagined Ireland to be. Rarely do the quintessential landscapes of a country survive its modernization or westernization as well as the Dingle Peninsula has, making it one of the most special places in all the British Isles. Unfortunately but predictably it rained the entire time I was there, but that did not prevent me from walking one of the best sections of the Dingle Way trail with my camera. The resulting pictures are gray and green and very Irish.

My walk started in Ventry, one of many little villages seemingly transported from the past. No particular time in the past that I could tell, but certainly not the present.

As you can see, thanks to the rain, I was pretty much the only person walking one of the great walks of Europe that day.

In the fall, the famous green of Ireland is augmented by rich reds and browns.

Here I am after the trail meandered up from the ocean for a couple of miles.

A very wet and unique section of trail. I believe there are ancient stone walls in there that have been covered by a thousand years of peat and shrubbery. 

Finally, I arrived back to the coastline and the beach had turned into cliffs and a storm was starting to push in from the Atlantic.

Here is one of those unmistakable Irish scenes on the Dingle Peninsula. Unless you mistake it for Scotland, I suppose that could be forgiven.

The newest structure in this photo is probably as old as the oldest structure in the United States.

Walking in this beautiful corner of Ireland, on a trail walked for literally thousands of years next to stone walls and stone buildings as old as the pyramids in Egypt was more than enough to make me forget about and even enjoy the torrential rain and cold Atlantic wind. We should all be so lucky.