5 counties in 2 days: The southern loop of the Kingfisher trail

“So where are you going tomorrow?”

“Back to Carrick-on-Shannon. Look, here’s our route”. I point my index finger to the green line on Mark’s smartphone.

“You’ll be passing by Ballinagh.. Arvagh.. you don’t need to go via Redhills you now, that’s a detour!”

“Well look we mean to take the scenic route, the country lanes… to avoid the traffic. Not necessarily the shortest route”.

“I see I see.. you’ll be travelling via Ballinagh… Arvagh.. you know when I used to work in Sligo I drove that road every day. Let me have a look. Ey, Redhills? You need not travel by Redhills you know that don’t you?

It is six o’clock and we’re having a well-deserved pint of Guiness in “Clones’ best pub” according to the female teenager Mark had asked for advice in the streets. Along with us and the furniture we counted the lad behind the bar and a few locals who seemed part and parcel of the pub’s routine of warming up for the busy night ahead. Along with a certain fondness of the “holy water” they shared a habit for asking the same questions and seemingly forgetting about the answers. The bloke I was talking to, “the happy one” according to Mark, was eyeing me curiously while asking questions, whereas his facial expression changed to a peaceful gaze whenever I did the talking, followed up by a broad smile and twinkling eyes when I finished speaking. According to the lad behind the bar the place would be buzzing with people and live music later that night. I knew for a given that we would be sound asleep by then, resting our legs for another 120km on the bikes the following day. Clones was proving a suitable stop for us to spend the night; a small village (circa 3k inhabitants) with a few pubs and restaurants hugging a snug street leading to the village square where a church told tales hundreds of years back. The hotel we stayed at was full of people eating drinking and, naturally, spending the night. Clones was hosting a film festival and appeared bustling with life, a welcome change after a day on the road with an aggregate of 5 cars counted.

To be honest, the Kingfisher trail (green = described route, blue = our take), with its winding country lanes and absence of cars was exactly what we had been looking for. Our previous long distance cycle in Ireland had been from Belfast to Dublin; a tale of cars and lorries thundering past us on N- and R-roads whenever we stuck to the route. Diversions into the unknown were not needed this time as the route, perfectly displayed on Mark’s phone which he had attached to his bike, was proving exactly what it promised to be; low-traffic density roads through rural Ireland. Climbing hills overlooking a landscape dotted with lakes, thundering down gravel roads lined with farms and ruins of barns and houses that might trace all the way back to the famine 150 years ago, through pine forests and past hedge-lined meadows, dodging dogs and avoiding confused sheep, leading us through counties Roscommon, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Cavan and Moneghan, over a road surface that made me cherish my choice for a hybrid and Mark silently regret the vulnerability of his racing bike, the trail was all you wish for when discovering Ireland on two wheels. But of course not everything went well. That would be too easy.

When climbing a hill to a particularly pretty viewpoint I was distracted by a twig being stuck between my mudguard and tyre. When I stopped and attempted to remove it, along with the twig appeared a large thorn that had found its way through my outer tyre into the inner tube. Pssssccchhhhhhh. It took us (read Mark) not overly long to fix the puncture, only to find out that Mark’s tyre had undergone a similar fate. After ruining his only spare tube we set about to fixing the one that had been punctured and well over an hour later we finally moved on. Frozen, we were. Cold. Very cold, from the wind and the standing still and more wind. “At least it’s not raining” I had said repeatedly while looking at Mark struggling with his tyre. 5 minutes down the road a drizzle started, and 10 minutes later we found ourselves in a rain shower that the Colombian rain forests would take pride in. We ploughed on. The ferry the route described could only be booked during weekends, but the girl on the phone told us (during our lunch break) that the rangers who operated the unit only worked during the week. So, no ferry, but an N-road flavoured detour. Let’s say we were happy to arrive in Clones that evening.

Day 2 we managed to stick to the route, with some gorgeous scenery rewarding us for that choice. Whereas a mild tailwind had been a welcome help on day 1, that wind had turned stormy and we were facing strong gusts head first when completing the route from east to west on day 2. Exhausted but satisfied we arrived in Carrick-on-Shannon, nurtured a pint of Guiness, and got on the train back to Dublin. And the best part of the Kingfisher route? There’s a northern loop as well. But let’s save that one for next summer. 

Milan

“Ok I think we’ve done enough sightseeing. Let’s go for lunch and a glass of red wine”. It was about 1 o‘clock in the afternoon and Koen, Luijkx and I had just walked from our apartment, via a great breakfast place with even better breakfast, to the centre of Milan, where we stood gazing at the Duomo. Well, gazing.. we were talking about other buildings in other countries that the Duomo reminded us of. Like the duomo in Firenze, and that Firenze really was too touristy. And the Jesus statue in Brazil, and how hungover Luijkx had been visiting that icon. Our yearning for a good get-together with loads of catching up obviously exceeded our appetite for a day of sightseeing in the business capital of Italy. Which isn’t to say that we abstained from any sort of cultural exposure. Oh no, unless you would classify a ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet at La Scala as something not cultural. But then you know as much about culture, or La Scala for that matter, as an Irishman about snow.

The bottle of great Sicilian wine nourished shortly afterwards wasn’t  the first drink to celebrate our weekend together. Technically speaking, not even of the day, as it was after midnight that Friday when we finally got to raise our glasses. The venue, a karaoke bar full of chanting teenagers, might have been a little ill chosen, but that didn’t suppress our joyful mood. It felt as if only a few days had passed since that last bucket of 10 ice cold beers that sunny Sunday afternoon last October in Madrid.  And of course the weekend was too short, much too short. The better hours of Friday night (or Saturday morning), a full Saturday minus the morning spent asleep in our stylish apartment in the middle of town, and a few hours on Sunday before I had to board the bus back to the airport (in Bergamo!).  Too little time but all the more cherished. A weekend filled with pasta, wine, cocktails, hot Italian girls, rain, great food, ballet, Italian speaking taxi drivers, English speaking waiters, wine-spilling waiters, did I say great food?, espresso, fresh orange juices, and promises for the next get-together to be sooner. And longer.

Apart from enjoying the excellent company of two of my best friends, I also enjoyed Milan. To be more precise, I felt elevated. I was enthralled, captivated, alternately energised by gushes of adrenaline and dreamy moments of reminiscence. The old world, with the typical architecture found in central / southern Europe, exhaling history at every street corner, with the facades of 5 storey houses with their omnipresent balconies, elegant lamp posts and cobbled streets, the vibe that moves cities like Budapest and Vienna and Milan forward, that very vibe carried me on for the whole weekend. Pretty girls in elegant attire looking you in the eyes in the street, rather than staring away or at the ground. Ancient churches casually hidden behind trees or apartments, squares filled with people, fancy stores exhibiting stylish garb. And as on many a trip, I could imagine myself living there, descending the staircase of one of those old apartments, boarding the passing tram in the morning, grabbing an espresso on the way to work… Weekends like these cost energy in a way, from the hours of travelling to the loads of drinking. But they definitely energise as well, and leave me with inspiration for future adventures.