Page 335 - Lonely Planet Europe’s Best Trips (Travel Guide)

DETOUR:
VALENTIA ISLAND & THE SKELLIG RING
Start: 5 Cahersiveen
If you’re here between April and October, and you’re detouring via Valentia Island
and the Skellig Ring, a ferry service (%087 241 8973; one way/return car €7/10, cyclist
€2/3, pedestrian €1.50/2; h7.45am-10pm Mon-Sat, 9am-10pm Sun Jul & Aug, 7.45am-9.30pm
Mon-Sat, 9am-9.30pm Sun Apr-Jun, Sep & Oct) from Reenard Point, 5km southwest of
Cahersiveen, provides a handy shortcut to Knightstown on Valentia Island. The
five-minute crossing departs every 10 minutes. Alternatively, there’s a bridge from
Portmagee to Valentia Island.
Crowned by Geokaun Mountain, 11km-long Valentia Island (Oileán Dairbhre)
makes an ideal driving loop, with some lonely ruins that are worth exploring.
Knightstown, the only town, has pubs, food and walks. IRELAND 24 RING OF KERRY
The Skellig Experience (%066-947 6306; www.skelligexperience.com; adult/child €5/3,
incl cruise €30/17.50; h10am-7pm Jul & Aug, to 6pm May, Jun & Sep, to 5pm Tue-Sat Mar, Apr, Oct
& Nov; p) heritage centre, in a distinctive building with turf-covered barrel roofs, has
informative exhibits on the Skellig Islands offshore. From April to September, it also
runs two-hour cruises around the Skelligs. If the weather’s bad, there’s often the
option of a 90-minute mini-cruise (€22/11, including museum entry) in the harbour
and channel.
Immediately across the bridge on the mainland, Portmagee’s single street is a
rainbow of colourful houses. On summer mornings the small pier comes to life with
boats embarking on the choppy crossing to the Skellig Islands. Portmagee holds
set-dancing workshops (www.moorings.ie) over the May bank holiday weekend,
with plenty of stomping practice sessions in the town’s Bridge Bar (hfood noon-
9pm), a friendly local gathering point that’s also good for impromptu music year-
round and more formal sessions in summer.
The wild and beautiful, 18km-long Skellig Ring road links Portmagee and
Waterville via a Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) area centred on Ballinskelligs (Baile an
Sceilg), with the ragged outline of Skellig Michael never far from view.

The Drive » Rejoin the N70 rather dour compared on the inside walls, a
and continue 25km south to with the peninsula’s clochán (circular stone
Cahersiveen. other settlements, but the building shaped like an
atmospheric remains of old-fashioned beehive)
16th-century Ballycar- and the remains of a
5 Cahersiveen bery Castle, 2.4km along house. The smaller, 9th-
Cahersiveen’s popula- the road to White Strand century Leacanabuile
tion – over 30,000 in Beach from the town has an entrance to an
1841 – was decimated by centre, are well worth a underground passage.
the Great Famine and visit. Their inner walls and
emigration to the New Along the same road chambers give a strong
World. A sleepy outpost are two stone ring forts. sense of what life was
remains, overshadowed The larger, Cahergall, like in a ring fort. Leave
by the 688m peak of dates from the 10th cen- your car in the park-
Knocknadobar. It looks tury and has stairways ing area next to a stone

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