After living in Ireland for a year, I can finally say I discovered a place that lives up to my standards of tranquility. I travelled there at the end of July and spend the weekend there. Cong felt very similar to the Bulgarian countryside in the fact that it is so small and the land around it looks wild and uncultivated for the most part. I love the countryside in Ireland and its cute cottages, but a lot of it looks a little too modified by humans. Despite its popularity and the statue of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara from the movie The Quiet Man, the village of Cong and its surroundings don’t look or feel like the set of a cheesy Hollywood movie. We cycled around the area and I was amazed at how much wilder nature looks in this part of Ireland. There were some very well preserved native forests and a lot of empty land which was overgrown with local plants, not yet eaten by sheep or cows.
Milena Penkova 