too many tourists | Chaos roaming the world

We couldn’t wait to leave the campground in Galway. It didn’t feel welcoming at all. Instead, you had to pay for a hot shower and in the morning, we realized you even had to pay to use the campers’ kitchen. That was just a little too much for us. Even so, we met a friendly fellow traveller at breakfast to swap stories with. He’s lived in New Zealand for the last 23 years and he just joined our conversation when Flo was going on about the (Path of) Exile Con in Auckland next year.

We weren’t too sure what we’d get to do today. Planning wasn’t really in the cards as we didn’t even know where we’d end up sleeping yesterday. But there were plenty of options.

Number 3 had bugged us about wanting to see a castle for a while. We agreed in principle though somehow the time wasn’t right. Dunguaire Castle was on our way today…we didn’t stop. Again, it just didn’t seem right for today. We had just left Galway.

In the end, our first proper stop was my pick: Hazel Mountain Chocolate factory. Flo and I had already agreed on skipping the factory tour. Buying chocolate in a factory outlet is a totally different thing though. When we got there, a tour bus had just pulled in so we swerved a little and sat down in the café before hitting the store. The café was lovely, serving hot drinks and baked goods, full of chocolatey goodness. All of it came in lovely pottery, making the experience extra cute. As you can imagine, I was happy. The kids seemed happy, too.

In the store, the tour was about to start. What had they done all this time? Shopping? Anyhow, the tour guide invited us to come along which was amazingly friendly of her. Flo and I listened for a bit but it is hardly our first chocolate factory tour. So we browsed the wares, turning around whenever something cool turned up in the talk. Number 3 got to smell cocoa beans, Flo got a handful of single origin chocolate to try. When the kids waved at the lady busy with actually making chocolates, she came out and rewarded both of them with chocolate covered marshmallows. A visit can’t be more of a win than this.

Flo picked the next point of interest for today: The Burren National park. The Burren are a stony landscape that you can walk through or in our case, drive through. Flo is a fan of limestone so he was particularly looking forward to this part. At a road side car park, we got out to check out if we could walk around for a bit. Per chance, we’d stopped right next to the beginning of seven hiking trails, two of which were marked as easy and loop walks of only about 1.5km. Number 3 picked the white one which we walked in its entirety. We hadn’t actually planned a walk here. Thus, lunch had to be improvised. We had spaghetti leftovers at the roadside with recently bought chocolate for dessert. 😊

County Clare’s big draw are the cliffs of Moher though. The Lonely Planet (which I’ve been reading way more than Flo) already instilled caution in me, given its description of the place. In fact, they turned out to be the cliffs of disappointment. It’s a gigantic tourist attraction, no question. You queue to pay your ticket fee, are ushered to your parking spot, walk with the crowd to the wall separating you from the cliff edge, take a couple of pictures and leave again. Yes, the cliffs are high and yes, they are steep. The experience is almost lost in the crowds. Sliabh Liag was way more atmospheric than this. The best way to see the cliffs of Moher is probably by boat. We just didn’t want to spend that kind of cash on it. It’s not cheap.

From here, our campsite slowly came to mind. We’d booked a site in Doonbeg without electricity (nothing else was available) so the car needed to be charged if we wanted to start early tomorrow morning. The charger in Lahinch was luckily available (after a 10 minute wait), which even gave the kids an excuse to put their feet in the ocean one more time.

The Strand Camping Doonbeg wasn’t used to one night travellers. At least everything was set up to feel much more long term. Still happy that we had a place to sleep, we set up before the rain, had a lovely shower and brought the kids to bed.

I kept threatening to throw them over – they still trust me 😀

Well, bad is the wrong word as nothing bad happened. Just a couple of annoying situations. But we’ll get to it in time.

Today is Mother’s Day, in Germany at least. In Portugal, it was last weekend but I’m still going with the German date. It is the day we leave Lisbon, a city we really enjoyed and hope to be back in, and a camp ground which was so noisy Flo wore noise-cancelling headphones. It is the day, we pack up and leave to have a second breakfast at Ikea. XD

To be honest, I’ve had the idea when we first arrived and saw the giant “IKEA” sign on the other side of the motorway. So today, after packing up, we went on a bit of a shopping spree. First to Decathlon (brand of big box sporting goods store) to look for shoes and a kid camping chair. Flo’s shoes are thoroughly worn and Number 3 occupies my chair at the moment. It was so hard to get him to eat properly without a chair that we swapped. He’s in my chair, I’m on the chilly bin. A kid-sized camping chair would be better though. We bought none of these things but left with kiddie sunglasses and a new shirt for Flo.

Ikea was the next stop. We’ve been on the road for about a month now and it was great, plain and simple, to walk into an Ikea where just everything is familiar: The layout, the furniture, the restaurant. Breakfast still has a national twist as you can get a pastel de nata, a croissant and a coffee for 1€ here.

Back on the road, we went into exploring mode. Instead of taking an inland route, we cruised along the coastline and saw what Portuguese people do on the weekend…they all flock to the beaches close by. We didn’t stop but I tried to get a couple of pictures of the thousands of umbrellas in the sand.

The road led us to the western most corner of mainland Europe: Cabo da Roca. As could have been expected, the place was full of locals and tourists alike – plus motor bikers to boot. Sweating in their gear, they took pictures in front of the memorial plate, reminding us a LOT of ourselves when we were on the road for a year.

The western-most point of Europe looks a lot like New Zealand actually, just rocks dotting into the sea and then a whole lot of ocean. No seals though. 🙂

After a couple of pictures, we drove off, further inland. Sintra was supposed to be a good stop even if the Lonely Planet warned of masses of tourists. A couple of kilometres on our way, we came past a weekend farmer’s market. There, we bought fresh bread, veges and fruits as well as cheese and jam. Blue George filled to the brim, we stocked up on butter and alcohol-free beer in a small shop and where all set for a roadside lunch.

Which didn’t happen. We just couldn’t find a nice place to stop and it was getting later and later for lunch. And then, we were in Sintra. Sintra is a labyrinth of small roads with most of them being blocked off for everyone except residents. That’s pretty awesome…just not when you are driving through it and the satnav doesn’t know you can’t go where it wants you to go. Plus, everybody and their dog was out and about, blocking roads, stressing from behind when we didn’t know where to go….it was stressful driving.

Also, there wasn’t any recommended café or eatery here, most being expensive or touristy. The next recommended restaurant was another 30 minutes away and we just didn’t have the time to get there. So we made the decision to park and find food here. Not so happy with the choice to begin with, we sat down in the least sucky place and ordered.

It took forever for them to prepare our food. I was just about to dig in when I realized that my spinach quiche, listed under “vegetarian options” on the menu, actually had chicken in it. Bleh! They were apologetic and I got my spinach quiche straight away but the meal was kinda ruined.

By now, we were completely over Sintra. Not to make it even worse I, at least, queued to buy the local sweet treats. Once we acquired them, we hurried back to the car and left.

Only the camp ground was still on our list for today. Ericeira is a surfer’s place so there is a big camp ground there. We actually managed to get in for a decent price and found a lovely place under trees to give us shade.

Putting our washing in proved to be a bit too late. First, you had to walk all the way back to reception to buy a token to wash and it felt like 1 kilometer in 30 degrees and no shade. Then, the washing mashine was occupied. So we hung our washing in the evening, knowing it wouldn’t dry before bedtime. Too bad as we had put most of Number 3’s sleeping stuff into it.

The sun set amazingly over the ocean shining right into our tent. Flo took great shoots of the natural beauty while I fought Baby who was entirely against sleeping in a hot, bright tent. Baby won. He went to bed at 9pm, leaving me exhausted and frustrated.