Our adventures on Day 1 continued with a visit to an area along the coast called The Burren.  The Burren is located south of Galway, in county Clare.  This area is really interesting: at first you would imagine it to be a pretty bleak landscape but it really is surprisingly beautiful.

The ground is in some places hard to walk on due to all the cracks and loose rocks.  Wildflowers pop up in between the rocks and small pools of water are left when the tide goes out.  The Burren formed beneath the sea and the limestone it is made of was cracked by glaciers and shifting of the Earth's crust.  The whole coastline is not made up of this strange rocky landscape,  there are also beautiful beaches. 

The beaches on this western coast of Ireland are much like those found in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.  The beaches we stopped at this day were pretty much secluded and there were no giant beach houses lining them.  In fact, we only saw maybe two other people.  The views were gorgeous and we got to stay and watch our first Ireland sunset!  This day was amazingly clear and actually probably the best day weather-wise the whole time we were in Ireland.