European travel Archives | In Lieu of Postcards

Kenmare, Ireland’s Hidden Charms

This summer marked my fifth trip to Ireland. Why, when there are so many places to go, do I continue to choose the Emerald Isle? For one, traveling to Ireland has been a formative experience for me. It was the first country I ever visited outside of North America, and the place where I spent a semester studying abroad 20 years ago. At this point in my Irish travels, there aren’t many major sites I haven’t seen. But in this place where I feel so many memories and connections, I tend to take pleasure in the mundane – walks to take, places to eat and drink, gardens and shops and inviting quaint streets. Sure, there are things I haven’t seen: despite living in Dublin for six months, I never went to the Guinness Storehouse, and I have never been to the EPIC Immigration Museum. I’d prefer instead to stand on the street in front of Kehoe’s with a pint in my hand, or to lounge on St. Stephen’s Green to watch Dubliners of every stripe intersect. Or, maybe head down to County Kerry for a slow amble through Kenmare.

The Must-Be Philosophy

I suppose I can sum this up as such: instead of “must-sees”, I gravitate toward a philosophy of “must-bes”: I must be back there. I must be in a moss-covered forest; I must be in the back of an Irish taxi with a witty driver; I must be sat at a table in front of the perfect toasted special; I must be in a pub where a fiddle is harmonizing with a concertina; I must be surrounded by slate-gray stone walls and ungainly bleating sheep and muddy crying skies. For this trip, these must-bes were converged in the small town of Kenmare, co. Kerry.

Kenmare, just off the Ring of Kerry with a population of around 2,500, is not exceptional among Irish towns, but it has long retained something of a mythical glow in my mind. It was one of the first places I visited on my first trip abroad at age 18. While my family only stayed in Kenmare for two nights, using it as a base to Killarney National Park, it was the first Irish small town I experienced, and it left such an indelible impression that I returned twice – for just one night in 2016, and then this summer for a whole week. I wrote a bit about Kenmare previously when discussing Kerry through Stephen Rynne’s cheeky book All Ireland, but after my third and longest visit, I wanted to delve more deeply into what makes this town such a delightful base for exploring one of Ireland’s most beautiful counties.

Escape from Killarney

As I wrote in my previous discussion of Kenmare, insofar as it is mentioned to tourists, it is usually as a more “cosmopolitan” alternative to neighboring Killarney, which has gone all-out in pursuit of American tourist dollars. In 2001, we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast called The Brass Lantern that I do remember as being quite elegant. It was run by a French woman named Colette, the showers were skylit and waterfall-like and the breakfast was a health-conscious platter of fruit and yogurt. This time, though, we acquiesced to modern convenience and stayed in an Airbnb (and a walk past the Brass Lantern suggests that though it is still ostensibly functional, is it not actually Xanadu), which was very close to the town center and let us explore Kenmare thoroughly in a week’s time.

Though the town has clearly grown since 2001, it retains its low-key charm, managing a nice balance with tourism that doesn’t impose on daily life. Is it boring? A little. But that’s the point. Tourists often say they want to live like the locals, but they don’t really mean it. In Kenmare, ordinariness – and straightforward, non-pandering Irishness – is the attraction.

Take, for example, the walk to town from our accommodations: we pass a field with a few grazing, wooly sheep, then walk along a river guarded by a stone wall and lush green trees. I run my hand along the wall, touching moss as soft as a shag carpet, feeling the ridges where stones were stacked, diligently, sometime in the distant past. (On one walk I managed to drop my scarf on the path; when I returned it was waiting for me, casually draped over a low shrub by a thoughtful passerby.) We spy a lone donkey eating languidly on an adjacent hill. A flower-adorned coffee shack, The Bean and Batch, beckons us across the street, and we perch on brightly colored chairs with flat whites and pain au chocolat (it’s Kenmare’s singular bastion of hipsterdom, but the clientele of sixty-somethings and young families are hardly intimidating). Just past this, the town begins: there’s a square and park that’s bustling with citizens and Kerry Way hikers making a pit stop. From there, two central streets branch out with shops, pubs and restaurants painted bright “Tidy Towns” colors, café tables spilling optimistically into the streets on the chance of a sunny day. Just a 10-minute walk and there, already, so much Irish charm.

Things to “Do” in Kenmare

You might be thinking that colorful buildings, mossy stone walls, and relaxed animals are all well and good, but what does one actually DO in Kenmare, aside from drive away to Killarney National Park, or other stops on the celebrated Ring of Kerry?

Attractions

First there’s the Bronze-Age Stone Circle, which I wrote about previously. The circle is probably Kenmare’s biggest tourist attraction, notable for being one of the few stone circles located in a town, rather than down some long and winding road in the middle of nowhere. The only issue is that while these circles are traditionally placed for their view, someone decided to plant trees in a ring around it, perhaps to set it off and protect it from the road. The result is an incredibly tranquil experience though one that isn’t exactly true to the intentions of its creators. There is also a souvenir stand, manned by an eager teenage boy selling plush sheep and Guinness knick-knacks aplenty, if that’s your cup of tea. But visit late in the day, with the crowds gone and the stand shut, and you can feel the hushed, almost mystical vibe of the place.

From the center of town, you can see the spire of a church rising just off the main square. This is Holy Cross Catholic Church, the most visually striking of the town’s churches, consecrated in 1864. In Ireland, there are interesting churches everywhere, and while this one is not particularly old or architecturally notable, it sits next to the former Poor Clare’s Convent founded by one of the town’s most famous residents, “The Nun of Kenmare,” Otherwise known as Sister Frances Clare (otherwise known as Margaret Anna Cusack). She was a prolific and especially intellectual nun: scholar and Irish nationalist, she established the convent and proceeded to write an impressive 35 books in the 1860s-80s.

A fairy fort in Reenagross Woodland Park, Kenmare.

You can learn more about this super-nun in the homespun and delightful Kenmare Tourist Information Office, which doubles as a history museum, chronicling the town’s industry, notable figures and daily life. I love small museums like this one that tell the stories of ordinary people (Nun of Kenmare aside) in ordinary towns. It might seem boring in the abstract, but its street-level humanity fosters a more intimate connection with a place.

Nature

Reenagross Woodland Park is the best nature one can see in Kenmare without a car. Like many beautiful Irish parks, this one is attached to a property designed for the wealthy, the 5-star Victorian-era Kenmare Park Hotel. Behind the grand stone structure are manicured gardens that dissolve almost imperceptibly into forest. Knobby trees perch over ferns and moss-covered stones, and gravel paths run along the edge of Kenmare Bay. While it’s no match for the spectacular views as on the Beara Peninsula or Ring of Kerry, it feels like a fairy-tale forest just a short walk from the bustling town center.

It’s these natural, magical edges of Kenmare that I found myself drawn to the most during our stay. Walk through the town center, take a left at the pizza place and proceed up the hill, and you’ll cross the River Finnerty, the tiny river that gives Kenmare a large part of its charm. Further up the road you’ll find Cromwell’s Bridge, an improbably steep structure that was built in the 1800s (though there was a similar structure here as far back as the 11th century). The bridge is unfortunately named for Oliver Cromwell, the English politician who led a bloody conquest of Ireland in the mid-1600s resulting in mass killings, land theft and forced servitude. The naming of the bridge is a mystery; Cromwell’s war did not even enter Kerry. The historical marker hopefully suggests that the name of this bridge was simply a mistake – the Irish-language word for “moustache,” alluding to the bridge’s rainbow-like shape, sounds like “Cromwell.” Name aside, if you’re a sucker for dry stones covered in moss, you’ll find it as enchanting as I did. Nestled on a small green surrounded by wildflowers, it’s the kind of place you can imagine reclining on a lazy afternoon.

Near Cromwell’s bridge is another of those especially Irish attractions: a shrine to the Virgin Mary, settled against a stone wall and tall hedge. This was one of Ireland’s “holy wells,” a site of folk religion during the period of anti-Catholic penal laws in the late 1600s-1900s. This well’s origin is not known; it may have begun as a site of pagan worship, then was blessed and turned into a Christian site. For pilgrims or simply curious onlookers, it’s another pocket of Kenmare enchantment.

Eating and Drinking

Lamb stew and Guinness at Coachman's — Lamb stew and Guinness at Coachman’s in Kenmare

As illustrated by these examples, life in Kenmare is not lived fast. It is a town for wandering, without expectations, and seeing what you’ll find. But while I may be making it sound like the humblest backwater, it should be known that the “cosmopolitan” label isn’t all spin. The town has quite a few fine pubs, restaurants and shops for its size; unlike other places I’ve visited in Ireland, its choices for dining and drinking are fairly numerous and high-quality. The Horseshoe, the town’s best-reviewed mid-priced restaurant, offers delicious food in cozy, candlelit surroundings. For a more ebullient dining experience, the touristy-looking O’Donnabhain’s was better than expected, offering a huge menu of well-executed Irish classics by similarly precarious candlelight (Kenmare is really not worried about people setting their hair on fire). Here the setting is a bustling pub environment soundtracked, at least when we were there, by a hipster college student alternating between affecting folk songs and improbable covers of “Dancing Queen” and other radio hits. Another standout, The Coachman’s, lacked in as much atmosphere but served an amazing Irish stew.

Atlantic Bar, a no-frills institution with a blue façade on the town square, became our go-to pub for lunch. With its perfectly presented toasted special (a hot ham sandwich with aged cheddar cheese and onion on robust buttery toast, served with golden chips), delectably fluffy Guinness, and cheerful proprietor, it was the platonic ideal of the Irish pub. Each time we visited, local workers of various professions laughed together and mingled with a few tourists enjoying a slower meal. On our second visit, we sat next to two friends on holiday from the UK, who engaged us in conversation on issues ranging from Paul McCartney to British and U.S. elections.

Traditional music session at Crowley's Bar — Trad session at Crowley’s

At night, the pubs come alive, and many try to offer live music, at least in the summer when tourists are around. This is highly variable; “live music” could mean a true Irish session, a solo accordionist, or an earnest young man playing “Wonderwall.” (Granted, the latter style can still be appealing; my husband and I did enjoy a pint in front of P.F. McCarthy’s as the band inside played a fine cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon.”) Crowley’s Bar is known as the place for “real” trad sessions, though Kenmare is not celebrated for its music scene like Dingle or Doolin. But the crowd packs in, and the festive atmosphere accompanied by lively fiddle, guitar and mandolin is irresistible. Elderly tourists holding iPads aloft seem to come out of the woodwork for a trad session, but a pervasive atmosphere of good cheer envelopes everyone anyway. During our visit, an Irishman visiting from another county treated the audience to a beautiful Sean-nós performance of the traditional tune “Little Saro.” His clear voice rang out in the hushed room, stopping for a moment the extroverted environment of the pub and turning inward – an old song and a new emotion.

Embrace the Boring

We made quite a few day trips from Kenmare, to beautiful and impressive surroundings (recommendations below). But when traveling anywhere, I’ve learned not to take for granted the ordinary experiences that aren’t on anyone’s bucket list. Next time you’re staying in a humble town, even one that’s never been labeled “cosmopolitan” or “colorful,” I recommend plunging yourself into the mundane, the boring, the every day. These are the things that make the essence of a place, and these are the things – as evidenced by my 23-year-pining for Kenmare – that you’ll remember.

Things to see near Kenmare

Gleninchaquin Park & Uragh Stone Circle: This breathtaking private park and neighboring stone circle on the Beara Peninsula is like something out of a dream. It’s a long drive on an incredibly narrow road, but worth it.
Kissane Sheep Farm: For animal lovers, a sheepdog herding demonstration on this picturesque farm is a delightful way to spend a morning.
Killarney National Park: This one’s obvious, but a hike in KNP is a must-do if you’re nearby. Tourists tend to flock to Muckross House and Castle, but the trails are peaceful and wooded. Arthur Young’s Walk was our choice; a lovely trail along the lake.
The Ring of Kerry: Another obvious one. There’s a lot to do on the Ring, but I’d recommend choosing a place and staying a night or two, rather than driving the whole thing in one day. See my previous post for discussion of Cahersiveen and its surroundings.

Traveling Italy…on the Edge of a Pandemic

I haven’t written for this blog since 2019. And there’s no mystery as to why—a global pandemic has a way of both bringing us all together and keeping us all apart. I’ve been one of the lucky ones in a number of ways, healthy and vaccinated and ready to travel beginning in June. For the past month, I’ve been traveling in Italy, a country just emerging from the throes of the pandemic, where my husband is teaching a study abroad program that we somehow managed to eke out despite restrictions.

And yet I sit here in front of my laptop, looking out the widow onto a cluster of medieval buildings, and I try to think of what to write. How to explain what it feels like to travel at time when I’ve just been reminded exactly what a privilege it is? At a time when hallmarks of climate change are cropping up everywhere, and the damage done by travel is present in each 100+-degree day, in the tall grass turned brown and crispy, in the omnipresent No Grandi Navi (no cruise ships) graffiti on alley walls in Venice? At a time when we’re just been knocked flat and grounded by a pandemic more widespread and serious than anyone living had ever seen?

Like most people, I’ve spent the past year sticking closer to home than ever—working at my little desk overlooking the backyard bird feeder, puttering around in the front yard, watching TV with my husband and listening to records and cooking and spending most nights in the same 1100 square feet of house. There were no restaurants, bars, films or concerts. There were limited gatherings with friends, outside even in the cold, wrapped up in layers and six feet apart. And there were walks—most evenings, I took to walking a two-mile loop around my neighborhood, a routine that now leads me to be recognized around town, like some local eccentric: Haven’t I seen you walking?

How to explain what it feels like to travel now, so far from home, when it seemed like we’d never leave again?

The Pantheon in Rome, Italy with post-pandemic crowds, summer 2021 — The Pantheon in Rome, with a smaller-than-usual crowd outside.

A Little Surprised to Be Face to Face with a World So Alive

This unwieldy heading is one of my favorite lyrics from my favorite song by the band Television, and while in context it’s about drugs and friendship, it also applies nicely to the experience of emerging from one’s COVID cocoon and into a world that feels like new. Everywhere, my home city included, things feel brighter, more exciting, vibrating with months of pent-up emotion and energy, ready to be released (for better or worse, considering the Delta variant).

The great thing about Italy is that to me, as a repeat visitor, it always feels this way—that whole la dolce vita thing, with the nightly passeggiata (evening stroll through the town to see and be seen), the gathering in piazzas for aperitivo (happy hour), the people in storefronts chatting at all times of day, reveling in their community even while tourists like us arrive to gawk at it. What I’ve hoped, as people have continued to get vaccinated and the U.S. has “opened back up,” is that we can become a little bit more like Italy, with more outdoor dining and events, more emphasis on community and the social aspects of daily life. (It remains to be seen whether late capitalism will allow it.)

This Italy study abroad trip was a new experience for us: while we’ve led programs before, this summer’s was the most comprehensive, with an action-packed first week-and-a-half hitting Rome, Pompeii, Sorrento/Capri, and Venice, before settling in to our university’s home base of Arezzo, situated in the hills of Tuscany near Florence. With a 0-60 start, our trip was exhilarating if a bit destabilizing after all those months at home, but as I write this, we’ve settled into a lovely, languid pace as we ride out the final days in Arezzo.

So has the pandemic changed Italy, at least in the eyes of a tourist? I’m happy to report that it hasn’t—not in the important ways. It still maintains that sense of public life, of community, of slow, relaxed living that is somehow also loud and boisterous. Due to lingering travel restrictions, the number of worldwide tourists is mercifully fewer, but that fact is only noticeable at the big attractions—Venice’s Rialto Bridge, Rome’s Vatican City and Forum, Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. Italians and European tourists have more than filled any kind of void with palatable energy, brimming over from packed outdoor cafes and public parks. It’s the same Italy, but I’m not the same in it—after a year and a half of pandemic, I’m a little bewildered, and perhaps more observant and grateful.

A canal in a quieter Venice, Italy post-pandemic, 2021 — A canal in a quieter Venice post-pandemic, 2021

Post-Pandemic Travel Pressure

I was thinking recently about how the experience of travel changes when you become responsible for yourself. On our study abroad trip, much of what the students do is planned out and pre-arranged, and they spend many days on guided tours and in the classroom, learning about what they’re seeing. In some ways, this is an incredible opportunity to really learn about the art and culture they’re soaking up, but they are missing a bit of what it means to travel as an adult—when the responsibility of communicating and navigating and connecting rests entirely on you.

I think back now to when I first fell in love with traveling, as a teenager going places with my parents, and how enjoyable it was to just go along with whatever they had planned. As the wife of an instructor on a study abroad program, I could do that again. But it doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to, especially as the pandemic and climate change have made leisure travel feel endangered. Now I’ve got a voice inside, telling me to seize the opportunity, to get all I can out of this, to appreciate it while I can. It’s a bit aggressive, this voice, and so much of this trip has been a mental balance for me—I take the voice’s point, but I also want to indulge in some of that slow living I mentioned. Floating along is not mere laziness; it also invites spontaneity.

Lively Piazza Grande in Arezzo, Italy, 2021

Seizing the Day in Italy

For better or worse, then, I’ve approached this summer’s travel with a rather serious mentality. We’ve all been anxious the past year, thinking about things like isolation and connection and community more than ever, and I’ve brought this baggage with me to Italy. I want to connect this time, I thought to myself, pouring over my pitiful Mango language lessons prior to departure. I’ve tried to be less shy and self-conscious, to use my minimal Italian and hold my own on the streets, to not become dejected when the inevitable confusion ensues. The thing about really making an effort as a traveler, though, is that it can be harder. If you take responsibility for yourself, it’s more frustrating, with benefits that are not often recognizable until much later (perhaps the next time you travel, when you will find yourself feeling more comfortable for reasons you can’t put your finger on).

But this time around, I have tried to revel in small the small moments of confidence and ease—for example, when my broken Italian has been rewarded head-nods of understanding, even the occasional beaming Certo! Or the time I bonded with the bartender in a tiny cocktail lounge in Rome by complimenting the music he was playing, an overture that was met with great enthusiasm. Or when I attended an Italian indie rock concert with local friends and felt like a real part of life in Arezzo (even when an uptight superfan “shushed” me, the loud American, between songs).

One thing that has always felt especially frustrating to me is grocery shopping in a foreign country; grocery stores all seem very much alike, and yet there are hidden rules that will embarrass you if you’re not careful. The Italian supermarket Conad has struck fear into my heart since the day two years ago when I was castigated for standing in a closing checkout line (a light was blinking, apparently). But this year I encountered a kinder, gentler Conad—and not just because I’d already learned the rules. It was there in the supermarket, putting on my plastic gloves to weigh the produce, that I realized the pandemic itself has actually had, in a small way, a positive impact on how we relate to each other in public life.

The streets of Sorrento, Italy, just reopening after the pandemic, 2021

COVID Confusion: The Great Equalizer

This realization came following challenges in Sorrento, which had just reopened the week before we visited. Everyone was hungry for business while also taking precautions to the extreme. I decided to do some shopping one afternoon before a group dinner with our students, and with my mask secured over my face, I thought I knew how to approach the situation. But upon entering a linen shop, a saleswoman began following me around as though I might shoplift, pulling out clothes and showing them to me until I left hastily in confusion. What had I done wrong? I wondered. Were they that desperate for business, or did I look like I was about to make off with an overpriced tunic?

The answer didn’t occur to me until we had our hotel breakfast the next morning. The breakfast was on a buffet table, but instead of helping ourselves as we had in the past, we were required to line up and tell the beleaguered young employees each thing we wanted heaped onto our plates. The system was strange and slow, but illuminating: I realized with embarrassment that what I had seen as an overzealous saleswoman was actually someone, confused as I was, trying to follow a tangled web of COVID protocols. We could not touch buffet food and we could not touch merchandise. As I thought about it more, I realized it was sad—those shop owners so excited to finally reopen, only to be told they could not allow customers to browse.

Confusing? Hell yes. But these experiences made me realize that travel in pandemic, in some ways, has made daily interactions LESS scary. Before, you see, I thought I was the only one who didn’t know the rules—that is how we tourists typically operate, concerned about looking like a fool with one false move. But now, with increasing complex pandemic restrictions, no one knows the rules. We’re all fools, and we’re all trying our best (well, most of us—I’m deliberately ignoring the belligerent anti-masking folks here). There’s a graciousness that wasn’t there before, a bit of understanding from both sides that this world is not so easy to navigate, and never has been.

Mid-afternoon shadows on a medieval building, Arezzo, 2021

Bringing It All Back Home

To try to summarize these stray thoughts, I have to say that for me, travel in the age of the pandemic includes perhaps a bit too much overthinking, but also a sense of awareness and generosity—I’m more aware of my own privilege and others’ generosity, and in turn more generous in my interactions and reactions.

I’ll admit that when we finished the first leg of our rapid-fire tour through guidebook-Italy and settled at our apartment in Arezzo, I was at a bit of a loss. I felt like I’d seen it all before but also like I was a tourist for the first time. What did we just do? I asked myself. Who am I in this context, trailing after a group of students, pinging around from St. Peter’s Basilica to Capri’s blue grotto to the Peggy Guggenheim to the Uffizi? Who am I now, leisurely reading by day in a Tuscan garden and congregating over deliciously sour white wine at night in a piazza beneath an astounding old church?

I’m lucky. I’m guilty. I’m an interloper. I’m a visitor. I’m a participant in life, here, in this place.

A participant—as a traveler, that’s really all any of us want to be, isn’t it? And when I’m sitting in my room next to an open French window and I hear the clinking dishes from the apartment next door, the voices in the courtyard, the church bells from the duomo which looms over it all, I have to remind myself that this is it. You’re here, and that’s all you need to be. It applies to traveling of course, especially when that aggressive voice pipes up, imploring you to make the most of the experience, see everything, do everything. But it also applies to our lives back home.

It reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s famous “This is Water” speech, something I’ve assigned to students for its uniquely incisive take on a modern dilemma: we ignore the good things that are right in front of us, and this leads to a lack of compassion. Something many have learned during COVID, I think, is that participating, being here is not just what happens when we’re on vacation. It happens any time we think to notice it. I’m here. This is the world. Isn’t it glorious.