A Day Off in Glengarriff

June 10, 2025

Well as luck would have it, it was a much nicer day here in Glengarriff but we were too tired to do the planned day ride over the Caha Pass. It wasn’t exactly nice and sunny but the wind calmed down and it got up to about 63 degrees, which is downright balmy in Irish terms. We had a much needed quiet day. Mary prepared a leisurely breakfast (croissants, yogurt muesli parfaits and cheese and meat) and Jill relished the opportunity of multiple pots of excellent tea to spend a good chunk of the day catching up on the journal in the breakfast room. We later found out Mary’s husband Chris was a chef for many years and makes up the fancy yogurt parfaits.

The breakfast room was comfortable and the breakfast itself quite nice.

The room had a big screen TV displaying a slide show of the best of Ireland. Note the coal bucket for the fireplace.

After two pots of tea we took a walk down to the sea and enjoyed the still weather. We also checked out the laundry situation at the campground next door and met Mickey, the owner of the campground who had agreed to let us use the washing facilities.

Mickey giving me the lay of the laundry land.

Dave decided using the facility was easy enough and since we were not riding today, he packed up his panniers with our dirty laundry and rode down there in the afternoon. No drama ensued. Later on he did a short ride around the area and stopped for a beer at Casey’s pub in Glengarriff. This is a very nice area and it would be fun to spend some time here.

Glengarriff is a lovely town situated by the bay.

There is a lot of good riding and hiking here, good accommodations and restaurants. That is the thing with bike touring: if you want to get anywhere you can’t dawdle much. We have had had so many Irish people recommend local paces to go, and we don’t have time to see them all!

That evening we had scheduled a FaceTime call with our friends John and Harriet who live in Lecco, Italy. It was fun to hear about their most recent project which is gutting and remodeling a flat they just purchased. Harriet is an architect so this project is right up her alley, although doing it in Italy is a bit of a challenge, to say the least. She had been taking Italian classes so hopefully that helps in communicating with the contractors. We plan to visit them next January and will be excited to see their progress.

We rode into Glengarriff on a beautiful evening and enjoyed an excellent meal at Casey’s Pub, a place owned by a local family. It has been around since the late 1800’s and started life as the “Cyclist’s Rest.”

We split a duck spring roll starter and then shared an order of fish and chips. Believe it or not, it was our first fish and chips since arriving in Ireland as my other efforts to have signature fish and chips have failed miserably (everything being closed for half the week). Dave enjoyed chatting with the bar tender after dinner and getting advice on Irish whiskey. He had a Jameson Stout Barrel whiskey this evening. Although he has a laughably broad knowledge of all spirits and wine he knows little about Irish whiskey, having always focused on Scotch whisky instead. (Note Jill's correct spelling of whiskey with an 'e' when referring to the Irish or American version of the spirit and using whisky, without the 'e', when referring to Scotch, Canadian or Japanese grain spirits. Apparently Ireland and Scotland are quite sensitive about the proper spelling of their products.)His report from the ten days spent so far in Ireland is that he likes Irish whiskey but has a long way to go to learn about it. ("So many whiskies, so little time!") We have plans to visit a distillery in Dingle so I suspect he will absorb some data there. Whenever I throw out the idea of economizing a bit on sustenance when we travel he always says that European food and drink is one the great reasons to travel. So, we don’t, I guess, unless we are so tired we eat a “free sandwich” in our room - as we did last night!

Although we didn’t do the ride I had planned today it was a much needed break and we mentally feel a lot better. We will ride over Caha Pass tomorrow when we depart for Kenmare.

I am going back over our planned route to look at things. I may try to modify some rides to reduce the distances. We are stressed both about his knee and the weather and it wears us down a bit. (I am now remembering the sage advice of the Grampies at the start of this trip; don’t plan too much mileage!) We shall see.

Today's ride: 5 km (3 miles)
Total: 1,388 km (862 miles)

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