County Sligo

For the next several days of our trip, we explored County Sligo, which is the next county north of Mayo, and is small in size, but has a fantastic variety of topography. I chose Lough Key Forest as our first stop…

… because I had read that you could find bluebells here. If you’ve read previous posts, you noticed there’s no lack of bluebells in spring in Ireland, but this forest had them in spades

And I loved when they mixed with ferns -

When we first drove into the park, and were trying to decide what trail to take (to maximize bluebell sightings), I found that I needn’t have worried. Just wandering down any one of the trails through the trees yielded great results -

Continuing on that trail we would suddenly come upon a grove of magnificent pines…

… or a secluded bridge -

Our next destination was a waterfall, but the route there sure had some beautiful vistas -

Glencar waterfall:

The waterfalls in Ireland aren’t as impressive in size as those in Iceland, but the variety of greens surrounding them was magnificent.

Because we had a gorgeous sunny day (and the next was forecast to be raining for most of it), we packed all of the sights I had planned on visiting over two days into the one. We ogled Benbulben as we drove by -

… on our way to Gleniff Horseshoe. My pictures just can’t do justice to this massive glacier-carved valley…

… but I’ll try.

Still moving on, we headed for a true hidden gem that I read about. There are no signs, it is not well-marked on Google maps, and not even all of the locals know about it. Luckily, however, someone had posted rough directions and pictures, so we could find the little trail off the side of a narrow road -

This is the way to The Fairy Glen -

Because there was no signage, I had no idea how far we had to walk or if we’d recognize it once we got there. No worries -

This huge, quiet space is completely hidden from any nearby roads…

… and is bordered on two sides by sheer rock walls, in some places probably 40-50 ft high.

Now the next day did have pouring rain for the entire morning, but once it cleared, we headed out for a short hike…

… up Knocknarea mountain…

… to Queen Maeve’s grave -

There wasn’t much to see at the cairn -

… but the views were phenomenal. In this next picture, check out the cloud reflection in the foreground and the lit up beach in the distance. :)

Thus, our travels through Sligo come to an end -