OK a mate of ours has been banging on for years about just how great the Burren was and his name is Kim Bamblett and Kim guess what you are right. The Burren is awesome and our stay in Lisdoonvarna showed us just how good it was. Yep good old Lisdoonvarna. Tara and I had some sort of idea that it would be a tiny little place with maybe a street or two with a pub or maybe not even that but no we were so wrong. This place is a thriving tourist mecca and has been for a long time what with this place having a natural spring with people coming from far and wide for its healing properties although I am not sure just how true that is. Either way even though the spa is now not in use anymore people still come from far and wide and use Lisdoonvarna as a springboard into the Burren.
Lisdoonvarna is a pretty cool place actually and has a wide range of pubs from a Celtic mad pub to a rustic old local joint where you can count the number of bugs buzzing around the light Cletus style. You might think that this is a bad thing but this place the Roadside Tavern brews its own beer in stout, ale and lager form and calls it Burren Black, Red and Gold now that is cool. In fact in all the places that we have been to we have never had own brewed beer so this place becomes instantly memorable. I think that for a pub to brew its own beer is a bit of a novelty so we appreciate this immensely even with the buzzy things near the light.
Right the Burren, it is a cool place. Big bits of limestone and eroded hillsides make it at first glance look a rather barren place but when you walk over the area it is totally different as the array of plant life is quite amazing. Yes it would be at this time if either of us were David Attenborough we would crouch down in front of the camera, hold a plant gently, lower our voice and whisper into the camera. Gees David get a grip it is a freaking plant, it cannot understand you but I digress. The Burren is as I said a cool place with plants rocks and other things like cows, sheep and birds. Doesn’t sound all that interesting right, well you are wrong it was.
It is hard to explain a place that you struggle to understand but I will try and put it in a way that may help you get your head around it. You know the moon landing, that dodgy old film that America has palmed off as their landing on the moon the one that stopped the whole world well if it was not filmed on the moon then I reckon that it could have been filmed at the Burren.
The place is a wonder of natural beauty that stretches from the sea to the tops of hills some 800m with the majority of the land being limestone and being used by farmers for sheep and cows. Added to this you are able to travel around the area and see Stone Forts and Megalithic structures that span centuries and all for the price of petrol and on occasions a small entrance fee. If you ever get the chance do not ever pass up the opportunity to see these places as they are truly mind blowing well for us at least.
Yep the Burren, KB spoke highly of it and it truly lived up to the hype and we thank him for all of his good words about it for without them we may just have passed it by like many others have. Thanks to him we did not and if we ever come back we again will return to see some more of it. It is truly a magical place and one not to be missed.
