David and I have been in Ireland since Monday morning, but didn’t start our walk of the Beara Way until today. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Cork, which is a lively and scruffy-around-the-edges small city. We walked a lot, sampled a few pubs and had an amazing meal at Café Paradiso, a vegetarian restaurant that’s one of the most popular spots in the city. The new potatoes with butter and mint was one of the most delicious dishes I’ve eaten in a long time.
We visited Sin É, a highly recommended pub with trad music, eclectic customers, and a riotous display of posters (many of Led Zeppelin), signs and cards tacked on all the walls and the ceiling. We met a lovely young woman there, who asked what I was drawing and when I said I was sketching, trying to get better at drawing after a life time of writing, she agreed that it’s always good to be learning new things. She’s a photographer, cyclist, dancer, writer, and most importantly, a plámáser. A plámáser? It’s an Irish word that has no English equivalent: someone who can sweet talk others into doing what she wants them to, but not in a creepy or manipulative way. Kinder and more clever.
Yesterday we took a three hour bus trip to Castletownbere, which turned into a four hour trip when the windshield wipers on the bus stopped working and we had to stop in the small town of Dunmanway to wait for a repair van. David sat in the open luggage compartment playing his guitar and I had time to shop for a hairbrush, since I left mine at home.
Castletownbere is scenic and charming. It’s the busiest fishing harbor in Ireland, with the hills of Beara Island just across the water, creating a quiet space for boats and a small bay for mussel farming. From there we set out this morning to walk across the ridge of small mountains that forms the spine of the Beara peninsula, headed for Allihies.
Not only were the long views spectacular, the close views were too. When I imagined this walking tour I thought about the green fields and ocean views. I didn’t expect such an abundance of wild flowers. There are hedges of wild fuchsia, heather in multiple shades of purple lining the walking tracks, small purple flowers that look like pincushions, yellow gorse, and pink foxglove. Also many flowers I couldn’t identify.
Walking in such open land, with patched green fields and ocean views in every direction, and ancient standing stones along the trail, is magical. Walking is perhaps the best possible way to spend a day. We’re delighted we have many more days ahead.
Grace Mattern 