Northern Ireland

My second visit to Ireland took me to the North. Over Easter Chris took the time to show me around Fermanagh and beyond. After a walk around the farm, we decided to visit Enniskillen, which surprised us with quite an impressive museum inside the castle. A very insightful collection of military equipment and interesting stories from the Napoleonic era! Overall, Enniskillen was quite a nice city, where you always run into people you know, although we missed Colin Farrell who was shooting a film in a nearby estate!

On the second day we went to county Donegal. As the street signs changed from miles to kilometres, we reached the Republic of Ireland. In Donegal, the town, we found the most impressive tourist office I have ever seen, with the vastest collection of ‘Visit Ireland’ flyers: we were literally overwhelmed with a multitude of green clovers and ‘failte’s. After the friendliest women told us about all the beauties of Donegal – and believe me there are loads! – we were quite confused as to what to do. With a map in hand, we went off to the town centre to stop at a small market, where they sold local products and an old guy was singing Irish music. As we got into a conversation with a local, we decided to stick to our original destination: Sliabh Liag (pronounce something like Sleave League). We took a few detours on the way and it was difficult not to stop every 10 minutes to look at the amazing panoramas (see picture below)! After a break at a beach, we finally got to Sliabh Liag.

 Sliabh Liag are claimed to be the highest marine cliffs in Europe - although Google seems to deny this fact. In any case, they are pretty high! We decided to park at the bottom to make the most of the walk – a very very windy walk! The views were amazing and we even discovered a lake on the cliffs, which just looked amazing! It’s definitely worth a detour – preferably on a sunny day!

Sliabh Liag

the lake on the cliffs with the ocean in the background

We had the chance to visit Florence Court, a National Trust estate right next to Enniskillen. The entry price was quite expensive, as it was £4.50 to get into the gardens and another £4.50 to visit the house – a National Trust membership would have been quite handy! Thus we only walked around the gardens, which was actually much more fun than I expected, as we fought our way through the woods climbing over trees that served as bridges over little streams – although my suggestion to act out the Dirty Dancing scene was unfortunately rejected!

Fermanagh was full of little places for lovely walks, the most impressive place was probably Lough Navar where we had the most impressive view onto Lough Erne at sunset (see picture below!) All in all I was really impressed by Fermanagh! After having concentrated on the South and the West of the island last time I came here, I am glad I rectified this lack! It is definitely worth a visit and I myself can’t wait to come back here!