Slea Head is the western end of Europe in everything but the strict geographical sense, and on a clear day it feels like it. The road clings to the side of Mount Eagle high above the Atlantic, and to the south-west the Blasket Islands lie spread across the water, with Skellig Michael faint on the horizon when the air is very clean. The Irish name is Ceann Sléibhe, the head of the mountain, and the headland drops into the sea in a tumble of rock, bracken and stone-walled fields that look too small to farm.
There is a small cross and a shrine at the viewpoint, and a car park that is always more crowded than you would like. Pull in anyway, because this is the best view on the whole peninsula. The islands on the water are the Blaskets, once home to a community of Irish speakers who produced some of the most remarkable literature in the language. The film Ryan's Daughter was shot along this stretch in the late 1960s, which is part of the reason the beaches below the road, at Coumeenoole, look familiar even if you have never been.
The riding here is wonderful and slightly nerve-racking. The road is narrow, with a low wall or hedge on the seaward side and often a very long drop beyond it, and the bends come blind. It is not a place to hurry. Meeting a coach in the wrong spot is routine, and the ride rewards patience and an easy rhythm far more than pace. Gusts off the ocean can be strong on the headland, and sea mist sometimes rolls up the slope and wipes the view out in minutes. A morning with a light westerly and sun is about as good as riding gets.
Look at the fields as you go, because the stone walls here follow patterns that go back a very long time. Beehive huts, the small drystone clocháns, are scattered along the slope and some are open to visitors for a small charge, and there are the remains of ring forts, tombs and early Christian sites all along the peninsula. This is one of the densest archaeological landscapes in Ireland.
Dingle, about fourteen kilometres back, is where you fill up and eat properly. Bring a waterproof, even on a warm morning.