Today was our last day in North Ireland, and almost our last day on the island at all - we fly home tomorrow morning. But we still had things to do! So we got up early and set about doing them! First stop was Bushmills Distillery. The oldest distillery on the island, individuals in the Bushmills region have been distilling since the 1400's, and the Distillery itself was licensed by king James the First in 1608 and has produced whiskey more-or-less continuously since then. While I've toured distilleries before, the Bushmills tour is interesting because Bushmills is as much a factory as it is a distillery. Although the futuristic control room - directing and and monitoring eight enormous stills - came close, the coolest part was the bottling plant. It was remarkably similar to the assembly lines I've worked on DEWALT plants. At the end of the tour they let us sample various whiskeys and gave us drink vouchers... and despite all we had learned, I still spent my drink voucher on a Coke. Despite all I learned I still can't enjoy whiskey. The science and art of it is fascinating... but the taste remains that of rubbing alcohol and dirt.
(Totally forget) who took this one, but thanks random tourist!
After a surprisingly cheap and enjoyable lunch at the distillery, we went over to Giant's Causeway - the original reason we came to Northern Ireland - and possibly all of Ireland - now the last stop on our week-long tour. But before that, allow me a side rant:
(Ethan's) shot showing almost the entire Causeway
The National Trust (for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty) is a load of wankers. Remember when the U.S. government "shut down" and then the National Park Service used extra manpower to close parks and prevent people from doing things that shouldn't have needed any government involvement in the first place? That's the NT. They took over management of the causeway and built a very nice visitors center. Then they blocked all the free or cheap parking nearby... going so far as to place "helpers" in the lots of nearby businesses dressed like officers to "helpfully" remind you you weren't allowed to park there. This is so you will pay $10 PER PERSON to park. Furthermore, they obfuscated all the paths to the cliffs so it looks like you have to go through the vi$itors center in order to get to the causeway. And what do they spend their ill-gotten gains on? Some of it must go to the preservation of the cliffs and trails - a noble goal that I'd gladly contribute a few quid towards. But the lion's share goes to providing "safety officers" to blow whistles whenever anyone gets too close to the sea - as if we hadn't just survived a week collective 152 years of scampering over rocks next to the ocean. Tossers.
Barely visible in this picture, my family!
Ireland has a great story-telling culture. And faced with such amazing geology as the Causeway, they came up with fittingly imaginative legends. Finn McCool, the giant, built the Causeway as a bridge to Scotland to challenge his rival. However, once he got to Scotland he found his rival was far larger than he expected! He ran back to Ireland in fear, pursued by his colossal rival. Fortunately his wife had a clever idea, and swaddled him as a babe. Seeing this enormous "infant" and aghast at the idea of a full-grown giant, Finn's rival fled back to Scotland, destroying the causeway behind him.
Regardless of the origin, be it allegorical or volcanic, the causeway and cliffs are quite impressive. The cliffs are larger and the individual rock formations smaller than I expected, but still bizarre and awe-inspiring. We went out over the upper trail, getting a birds eye view, before continuing down the face to the formations and back across the coast. I gave my family a head start to get some photos of them dwarfed by the cliffs. Those little red and yellow dots? Those are my family! Then I raced off after them - midway across the face we saw the Giant's organ and then we hiked around the point to the end of the trail, before heading back to the causeway proper.
In the intertidal rock-and-wave zone we climbed all over the rocks, got yelled at by the wankers in "Luminous" vests, and I finally got a decent photo of some birds. Flighty little buggers, them. Then, regrettably, it was time to head home. We hiked back up the coast (and finally saw Finn's Camel which we'd been misidentifying for hours!) As I waited for Adam to extract the car and my family to circumnavigate the visitors center I spent my time telling random people in the parking lot how to avoid the entrance fees. #Resist
Then it was over. We got in the car, drove back to Swords (the suburb of Dublin next to the airport), and had our last pub dinner. Dad even got a good beer this time! Now it's time to shower, sleep, and get on an airplane.
All in all I completely recommend Ireland. It's one of the most beautiful countries on earth, and has the richest history of anywhere I've ever been.
(Adam)'s picture of Ethan and Dad about to get whistled
Yesterday I mentioned how much we love waves and wind and the violence.... and apparently God listens closely to Ireland, because he heard me and delivered in spades. We woke up early(ish) to do the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge! When we arrived we found it was closed due to high winds... but we were still free to take a chilly hike down to the bridge, so we did! Honestly, I think not walking the bridge in terrible weather is more fun than walking the bridge in great weather would be. The bridge itself looks pretty ridiculously overbuilt, but 40 knots is well over their limit. I might be disappointed if it was still the old working fishing bridge - one railing and some sketchy boards...
Having admired the wind and waves from a distance, we decided we'd check them out close up and stopped back at Ballintoy harbor! A higher tide and the excessive winds made rocks much more precarious. Most of the rocks we climbed yesterday were unreachable without a death wish, and the channels looked like they'd love to grind a boat to splinters. In short, it was great.
We then hit Dunseverick castle! Unfortunately Cromwell absolutely destroyed it in the 1650s, and now the ruins of the gatehouse barely survive :( . I jogged a few feet down the path to get some pictures, then we all jumped back in the car to head to another castle!
(Dad)'s picture of us examining the chimneys
Maintaining momentum we went to Dunluce castle! This castle is said to have inspired CS Lewis's Caire Paravel - both are abandoned castles half fallen into the sea. But first, lunch. Sandwiches at the tasty and very warm on-site cafe were vastly appreciated. Mom even got fancy English tea with all the accouterments. Then we went to the castle proper. After a surprisingly interesting video explaining the history (Scotch-Irish warriors lost the castle to a clan of Scottish Mercenaries they had hired and imported a few decades earlier) we wandered down into the ruins! It was better preserved (and with more safety railings) than I expected. But it was totally a castle, with arrow-slots, towers, and even a drawbridge! (Back in the day - the bridge doesn't draw anymore). And as it was on a corner of the coastal cliffs the wind tore through it and chilled our fingers fiercely. We were discussing heading down to sea the sea-caves literally beneath the castle, but the path down was closed... which simplified our decision.
(Adam) took this picture the best. What a cool castle.
Next on the plan was Giant's Causeway, but as the winds had not subsided at all and the coldness was seeping into our bones, we continued on to Downhill Demesne instead. We blew by the entrance at first, which worked out as it meant we could go down to the beach and look up at the iconic library! Several of us were in favor of driving out on the beach (where the road lead), but some of us were not, so that proposal got nixed. After parking at Downhill Demesne we walked through a fancy door and across the walled garden, towards the Mussenden Temple, as the library is officially known!
First stop was the dove-cote. This round building was an icehouse on the lower levels, and the upper level had nesting slots for 300 pairs of doves (Typical occupancy: 200 doves. Current occupancy: 1 pigeon, and 5 tourists avoiding the rain). It was quite a neat structure. If I ever have a farm or an extra acre somewhere I'll probably try to build a dovecote... or maybe I'll just sneak into the woods and build one in the middle of nowhere... Once the rain shower had (mostly) passed and it was back to being only cold and windy, we continued towards the circular library. My parents veered off towards the manor, while the boys chose the coastal road. We walked across the field (except for Adam, who galloped) and made it to the cliff-side wall, where we could look down on the carpark we'd just visited. Now we could clearly see the library and approached it, pausing to take pictures (and attempt to take better versions of the photos our other brothers had just taken.). Finally making it to the library, we rejoined our parents. It would have been an amazing library. Excellent natural light, shelter from the elements, and coves for statues and shelving all around. On top of that, back in the day a fire was kept burning continually beneath the floor to keep it warm and protect the books from the dampness which was now all-so evident. On top of that, the library was right on the cliff, providing excellent views. When it was constructed, there was "enough room to run a carriage around" the library. Now, just like at the cliffs of Moher and the Dunluce castle, erosion had made itself strikingly evident, and there is now only enough room to walk a small dog around the library - assuming you and your dog are both very sure-footed.
We then made our way up to the manor, which was construct to imitate an older castle, and by and large did so. When we were in Dunluce, I thought that if I ever built a castle I'd build it to look like ruins look - not like historical castles actually looked when they were built. Here, the Hervey family did exactly that at the beginning of the 19th century. Later, the manor was given to the RAF, who let it go to ruin after the war. Having explored the entire manor we were well cold, and ready to go home, so we made our way back to the car.
(Adam)'s picture of our parents and the manor.
But I was still hyped up on the caffeine I'd had with lunch and pushed for more. Mom brought up the Lissanduff Earthworks, and I immediately agreed without knowing what they were. I assumed some sort of pottery factory - but I was wrong! They are instead prehistoric earthen constructions. We followed the GPS to the middle of nowhere, checked the satellite imagery, and then Ethan and I decided to YOLO it. We jumped out, climbed over a fence, and tromped through the prickerbushes endemic to Ireland towards where the Earthworks should be! What first appeared as random hills resolved as concentric rings, 8 feet high. Inside the center ring is a marshy collection of reeds, just wet enough to drench your boots if you were, for example, to tromp into the center of the ring trying to feel mystic pagan energies. (None were felt). We then found the second ring, which was mowed, dry, and had staircases for official access. Then we found a path to a carpark! We jogged back to the first ring and saw dad walking out to us. With exaggerated sign-language we semiphore'd that they should drive down around toward the shore - signals he relayed to the car. Then we tromped around and after a few minutes Mom and Adam came walking up the trail! As weird as the site is, what is more weird is that in the 1800's someone decided that it would make a great place for a garden, and put their house/shed RIGHT THERE. They bulldozed (or whatever you did in the 1800s) the 3000 year old temple / shipping terminal / fort, built their shed as part of the inner ring, and built their house as part of the outer ring, and used it as a garden. Weird.
We made our way back down to the carpark, watched the waves (still whipped into full violence by the cutting wind), and then drove the 10 minutes back to our airBNB. A quick stop to freshen up, and then Adam treated us to a very upscale meal where Mom got giggly off a quarter glass of wine. It was cute. All in all a great, but tiring, day.
Dear Irish God: Please let tomorrow be less windy. I'd really like to see Giant's Causeway while being able to feel my fingertips.
Today we headed out of Dublin to Northern Ireland - which is technically part of the UK. However, since they are all EU (for now - Brexit may change that), there wasn't anything to mark the border besides an abrupt switch of the speed limit signs from KPH to MPH.
We drove through/under Belfast (another large city, with more manufacturing, enormous cranes, and general malaise) and kept going until we got to the coast. We could see Scotland! It's really not surprising that they migrated back and forth, as Scotland is just 13 miles away and clearly visible. I've walked farther than that! But I've never swam that far.... On this protected coast, there were almost no waves. We can't have that, so we continued around the coastal route (including some very small, very windy roads) further north.
Our first stop was Torr Head. In antiquity this crag was used for signal fires so the Scottish clans could communicate across the sea. More recently, this lookout post was used to track trans-Atlantic shipping, and after that was a coast guard post (Rumor has it that the customs house was burned down in the 1970s by the IRA, but apart from a failed attack in 1956 I can't find any evidence). Now, it's just an abandoned hut on top of a hill, with waves crashing all around. We even saw a seal! I love seals, so I switched to the zoom lens and laid prone waiting for him, but he never popped back up. We roamed around the island (I saw a rabbit? They're almost as cute as seals), and we took in the amazing views. But we were still hundreds of feet from the crashing waves, so we continued on.
So many choices, but (Ethan)'s pano captured the scene the best.
Adam on the crux
of a bouldering problem.
Continuing north, we found Ballintoy harbor. This begins our Game-Of-Thrones tour! The harbor and the rocky coast was used for a few different scenes.... not that we really cared - we were more interested in the landscape. We poked around the caves on the shore and then started scrambling out over the basalt stabbing into the sea and sky. Super photogenic rocks, with waves crashing! We poked our way around several outcroppings, crossing from one to the other in the still pauses between waves. Eventually we climbed down to get even more dramatic pictures and I finally got close enough to the waves! I'd watched several big waves roll in and noted that a certain part of the rock always stayed dry. So I stood there! And when I looked up, and the next wave was just a bit larger. But I was committed, and as the wave grew closer and larger so did my doubts. However, my decision was behind me and I had no choice but to ride it out (or get hit mid-stride and potentially thrown into the churn). When the chaos subsided, my boots were generously sprinkled. Totally worth it for the footage I hope Ethan got...
Ethan didn't get any... (Dad) did though!
We stopped at a rope bridge to check it out, but there were tour buses and jammed parking lots full of people - We were told an hour wait, and decided we'll rework our schedule a bit to hit it tomorrow morning. So more on this tomorrow!
Continuing on our game-of-thrones kick, we went to the Dark Hedges - a super photogenic rows of trees (that was used as The Kings Road in the Game of Thrones series). It was quite uncanny to drive miles and miles across narrow backcountry roads, alone except for the occasional farmer, to turn on to one street almost alike all the others and find it overrun with scores of people. And while the fanboying at the harbor was minor, at the Dark Hedges it lost all subtly - a few buses had disgorged a load of aficionados garbed in cloaks and armed with cheap plastic swords to roam the avenue. I'm sure the old aristocrat who had these trees planted to welcome people to his estate never imagined people would fly halfway across the world to see the trees, nor how they would be dressed when they arrived. That said, it was still quite cool to see all the birch trees, lined up, twisted grey branches reaching into a grey sky.
An empty section! Quick take a shot!
After seeing Dark Hedges we headed to our house for the night, apparently at the same time every tractor in the county decided to head home. Our airBnb is a great half duplex near Bushmills Distillery, and after almost breaking into the neighbors house (before rechecking the address) we settled in. Somewhat burned out on pub food, we ran out to the grocery store and stocked up on basic groceries. A simple spaghetti dinner was just the thing. After the dishes were done, we settled into the family room and lit up the fire for an evening of dice, cards, and trying to decide who had the "photo of the day". We all won.
"Ireland, day whatever: Dublin. It's a city, like all cities. It was meh. Then we drank a lot. It was better, but still to hell with this let's go find some castles. The end."
So I'm going to have to recreate this from memory...
(Ethan)
We decided to take a walking tour of Dublin today! We met our tour guide, Ritchie, at the Spire of Dublin. The spire is a 390' tall stainless steel tower built to celebrate the new millennium, and conveniently within sight of our apartment. Even before they finished the monument (in 2003) the locals started renaming it, in Irish tradition. The appellations start with "Stiletto in the Ghetto" and go downhill from there.
We visited the River Liffey, the Irish House of Parliament (now a bank), Dublin Castle (now ancillary and ceremonial government offices), Temple Bar (a entire neighborhood, now full of bars) and both cathedrals (one financed by Guinness, one financed by whiskey). At each stop we were regaled with history, witticisms, and amusing rants - Ritchie was obviously chosen for his historical knowledge and personable nature. Oh, and also because he had a great speaking voice... our family nodded to each other and surreptitiously shifted over while they were splitting the group in half, and we "just happened" to get Ritchie instead of his quieter partner.
My favorite tidbit was on the history of Dublin is the history of the name of Dublin itself. Dublin was founded by the vikings (or possibly earlier monks?), who asked the locals what they called the place they were at. The locals responded: You're by the black pool (dubh lind). And the vikings responded "Blackpool. Got it" (Dublin). Later on down the line, the Irish realized that the vikings were asking for the name of the town - not the tidepool, and let the Dubliners know that the town name was actually Town-on-the-hurdled-fording-point-of-the-Liffey-River (Baile Átha Cliath). Nobody could, nor cared to, pronounce it, so they stuck with the simple Dublin in a pragmatic, Irish way. Or at least, that makes a good story, and not letting the facts get too far in the way of a good story is truly the Irish way.
(Mom)'s picture of Ritchie at The Coach House
My good picture from today.
After the tour we wended our way back and forth across the Liffey towards Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is an illustrated manuscript of the four gospels, produced ~800 AD at the height of calligraphy. We pre-booked our tickets, and after a brief wait in line entered the exhibit hall. After spending some time perusing the crowded pre-exhibit learning about the book, we entered the (more crowded) viewing room itself. It was fascinating to see the reverent hush that persisted over the crowd, as we all clambered to look at the book. It was hard to see and pictures were strictly verboten, you're much better off getting a look at it online if you are interested in the content of the book. The tour ends with a walkthrough of the Long Room - the oldest part of Trinity College's library. This room was gorgeous, all muted light, dark wood, and ancient books. It's inspired libraries throughout fiction (Star Wars almost got sued for it) and it's easy to see why.
Worn out from walking (and worse - standing around) we headed back to the apartment to make plans for the evening. The boys decided to head out on Ritchie's bar tour, while our parents settled on a nice sit-down dinner. So back to the Stiffy by the Liffey! I mean, um, the Dublin Spire. The night consisted to listening to Ritchie describe the history of various drinks, and then drinking them while getting to know our single-serving friends (Navajo, Polish, German, Latvian, Canadian, etc) who were drinking with us.
At the first bar, I accidentally ordered a liter of beer. I felt like Pippin - "It comes in pints?!" Turns out when the bartender asked if I wanted this <points to poster> she meant the glass, not the Octoberfest inside it. I poured as much as I could into our new friend's empty tasting glasses, and tried (and failed) to drink the rest before we were off to bar two!
At bar two we had whiskey (still gross), a dairy-based Gin ( B+), and dinner! We went with fish&chips and Coddle, a traditional Dublin dish designed to use the last of the cheap meat before Friday. The stew is based around black pudding, white pudding, and bacon - Ritchie refused to tell us what was in the sausages until we'd eaten some. After sampling them I asked for a hint and he said "You know the grossest part of black sausage? Leave that out and you get white sausage." Despite knowing what they were made of (according to the packaging in our airbnb: suet, oatmeal, breadcrumbs, offal, and a lot of blood for the black) they were both legitimately delicious, and we finished the whole thing.
At bar three we had Guinness, Dingle Gin (we had to try it after driving all over Dingle, C-), and more Guinness. We listened to the Traditional Irish music - played in the traditional Irish manner - a few guys in a side room having fun and not really a performance. Ritchie warned us that he might give us an Irish Goodbye, but we could all make it back to the Steel Erection at the Intersection if we turned left and followed the tram lines. Around midnight we gave our own (American) goodbye, turned left, followed the tram lines, and made it home after a brief and blurry detour for milkshakes and fried chicken. I jotted down some cursory journal notes and fell thankfully into bed.
We woke up around regular time to get breakfast. And by we, I mean everyone else. Having forsworn breakfast for being a useless meal I slept in instead. After everyone returned fueled up for the day we headed out to hike the cliffs! Well, first we watched the recycling truck crane-game a ton of glass bottles out of an alley and into its bed, but after that we headed out to the trail!
Even given the same source material, we all took very different shots.
(Mom)
(Adam)
(Brice)
(Dad)
(Ethan cantilevered off Brice)
The hike was amazing. Cliffs / rocks / ocean to our right, and pastures / horses / a castle to our left. I love the ocean, I love rocks, and I love the ocean dramatically crashing against rocks - so it was pretty ideal for me. Highlights include: Feeding grass to horses (the grass may not be greener on the other side of the fence, but it is much longer), ocean caves, waterfalls (including one where the wind blew a majority of the water back up the cliff), and cliffside goat-trails where almost everyone chooses to walk closer to the edge than the official trail goes. Mom was not a fan of these goat trails, and often left us behind, turning her nervous energy into forward momentum. Maybe she hoped that we'd have to catch up and would have less time for shenanigans? Needless to say, shenanigans were still had.
(Ethan) taking a picture of (Brice) taking a picture of a waterfall.
(Ethan)
After a few miles the trail turned steeply uphill and the going got tough. The tough started stripping off layers and kept going. This brought us up to the higher, rockier part of the cliffs (prior to now the top layer had been coated in a thick self-weaving mat of grasses). Seeing the bare rock absent of any groundcover underlined how sketchy the cliffs actually are. I overheard part of a conversation detailing recent deaths... there was a base jumper who's 'chute didn't open, and a pair of abseilers who suffered a rockfall when they were only half done their rappel. As I listened to this, I noted all the people nearby creeping out to the edge for the perfect Instagram picture. To be fair, if my mom had been in a different country, I would have been out there with them. Heck, I would have brought gear and gone for it full-tilt. Perhaps it's best she was there. Finally, five miles of hiking behind us, we arrived at the visitor's center. The viewing platform and proper side-walks (with railings!) were a stark contrast to the paths we came in on, but definitely more relaxing. Another change was the paraglider who floated over us waving. The visitors center itself was definitely not worth the 8€ entry fee, but they waived the fee for hikers! So we ate some crowded cafe food, checked out some so-so exhibits, and most importantly found the penny-smasher.
(Brice) taking a picture of (Adam) taking a picture of flowers.
As an incredible amount of fog drifted in, we caught a shuttle bus back to our car, and prepared to head back to Dublin. But first, a castle! We went down no-name streets so narrow we couldn't even pass a stray kitten and dead-ended at some farmer's driveway. There it was! Covered in sheep and keep-out signs. I snapped a few pictures from the outside and we headed towards Dublin. This consisted of narrow roads and narrower roads. At one point, on a "back up if there's an oncoming car" width road, the lines disappeared. We took this as a sign that we could move to the middle of the single lane. Unfortunately, the local behind us took the lack of lines as a sign he could pass us, and clipped our mirror in doing so. Surprisingly everyone stayed calm and no damage was done, except for some additional frazzling of nerves.
That's our hotel in the background!
(Ethan)
As we drove through the countryside we saw ruins in the distance everywhere we looked. It's ridiculous. Most of these are on private land and completely unlisted -a concept I still struggle to understand. Regardless, when we saw a tall tower in the distance Dad asked if I wanted to check it out. I, of course, said yes! The Kilmacduagh Monastery was only a few hundred yards off our route, and has the tallest tower in the country! The circular tower was a refuge built to escape to during raids. The bottom 20' is solid stone, so when the monks pulled up the ladder there was nothing for the invaders to attack. It also leans a creepy 6' out from vertical... After eyeballing the entrance for a while and finding no obvious climbing routes, we wandered around the rest of the church buildings snapping pictures and exploring. The compound was built in fits and spurts over a thousand years, starting in the 7th century. When we finally got back in the car, my mom told me "I saw you climb into that church." I didn't have the heart to ask her which one.
After the surprise-abbey we finally got onto the main roads, did a bunch of standard highway driving, bought groceries / dinner at a gas station, and finally made our hectic way into Dublin and our apartment for the night. First impression of Dublin: It's dirty, hectic, and full of too many people. So a lot like Baltimore, really. Tomorrow we'll see if experiencing the city properly changes those impressions.
Today I woke up early to hike around Dunmore Head! I jest... Adam and Ethan woke up super early to hike around Dunmore Head! I woke up at 9.30 and hiked down to the beach with Dad. It was a great beach, all sorts of nooks and crannies, a few caves, even a tunnel! Plus waves crashing violently, what more could you want? While my dad followed me over a weird slippery wet climb I told him "I tend to forget you're 60."
"Me too" he replied.
We packed up and headed out from our beach house to continue around the Dingle Peninsula. After a few miles we came upon a lookout spot. Why not? The younger generation made our way across a marshy path up to the rocky point - and then headed up to the next rocky point a bit higher up and further out! We repeated this process for ten minutes until we found the best rocky point. Not that it really mattered, since they all had amazing views. On the way back to the car we passed a pile of rocks, which of course we had to add to. Hopefully some future archaeologist will ascribe some great meaning to it. Maybe we were "collectively creating permanence, forging order out of chaos, contributing to something larger than ourselves in defiance of the transitory nature of life." Honestly, it just seemed like the thing to do. (Editors note: Found it!)
Adam's second contribution, after I asked him to recreate that photogenic thing he did.
After we got back to the parents and the car we continued down to Clogher Strand - the beach we saw from the lookout. This beach - known from several famous movies I'd never heard of - had caves even larger than the previous beach next to our cottage. Ethan, Dad, and myself went down to check it out. The beach was covered in perfect green Irish rocks, and the breaking of the waves was even more violent and impressive. One of the caves was in the midst of said impressive violence, but the other cave was invitingly easy to access. We walked in and, eyes adjusting slowly, Ethan almost stepped in a puddle, I saw his mistake and safely crossed, and Dad nailed it and ended up with a wet shoe. Super neat cave though, deep, picturesque, boobytrapped - everything you could want in a cave.
Clogher Strand, with The Dead Man in the background (Adam)
Sketchy (Dad)
Less Sketchy! (Mom)
Continuing across Dingle (via a handful of increasingly sketchy overlooks, of course) we stopped at a Gallarus Oratorium, a beehive-style chapel. This church was (potentially) 1400 years old, and had amazing stonework - all the joints sloped out to repel rain, all the windows somewhat conical, huge lintels, even stones with holes to hang a door embedded in the walls, and no need for mortar anywhere. Mom said I had to mention the Fuchsia lining the path, which "matches my red coat that looks so good in the pictures." She's not wrong. The Fuchsia and the coat are both exceptionally photogenic, especially in such a green country.
Very lucky "Reach as high as you can and hope" shot
For lunch, we stopped in the town of Dingle. It's essentially a tourist trap, famous for Fungie the dolphin - This released aquarium wild dolphin loves people and began by visiting all the fishermen, and now visits basically every tourist boat that goes out to meet him. There's a statue for him, and I did my favourite tourist-trap-thing and cranked out a smashed euro-nickle (featuring Fungie, of course). We grabbed a few souvenirs and lunch at a grocery store, before heading on our way over Connor's Pass.
We drove up into the clouds over a windy road filled with warning signs, and then dropped out the other side to great views of glacier-carved valleys, moraines, and waterfalls. We stopped at one scenic outlook which would have been exceptionally scenic were it not swamped with cars.
Instagram
Real Life
After that, we just boogied northward towards the Cliffs of Moher. Got on some "M-roads" (aka real highways with American-width lanes!) and put down the kilometers. What amazes all of us is the casualness with which they treat their ancient ruins. Some are signed, most aren't. Despite our research and maps we'll have no idea some castle ever existed except a glimpse of a keep in a field as we fly by on the M18. We skipped past Limerick, but if anyone asks I'll claim to have been there, and arrived at our hotel in Doolin around dinnertime. As always, Mom did a great job of researching, and we ended up with a great apartment We have a view of ruins and horses out the back windows, and the front windows have a view of more ruins and more horses. Unfortunately, Mom being a mom, she also made sure to ask and all the ruins are on private property and strictly verboten.
We walked out to dinner at sunset, eventually choosing the last restaurant on the road, which was a great choice as their cider and lamburgers were on point. Eventually we walked home, with brief stops to listen to trad music through a pub window and checked out Mars and some stars. Now we're back at our sweet apartment for some wine, cards, and general chilling.
Ireland has a great story-telling culture. And faced with such amazing geology as the Causeway, they came up with fittingly imaginative legends. Finn McCool, the giant, built the Causeway as a bridge to Scotland to challenge his rival. However, once he got to Scotland he found his rival was far larger than he expected! He ran back to Ireland in fear, pursued by his colossal rival. Fortunately his wife had a clever idea, and swaddled him as a babe. Seeing this enormous "infant" and aghast at the idea of a full-grown giant, Finn's rival fled back to Scotland, destroying the causeway behind him.
