Day 7- Northern Ireland

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.

(Mom)

I finally figured out how to use a prime lens!

Ireland Day 6 - Dublin

Checking my notes for today, I have:

	"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 all took this photo! (Dad) took it best!!

Ireland Day 5 - Cliffs of Moher

(Mom, obvs)

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.

(Adam)

Ireland Day 4 - Dingle!

The morning hike (Adam).

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 Day 3 - Valentia to Dingle

Fascinating, and simultaneously
totally ho-hum. (Mom)

We woke up super early to try to finagle a ride to Skellig Michael! And found out that they actually are closing the island today due to the weather. So we wandered around waiting for things to open, found some breakfast (and digestive biscuits) at a grocery store, and killed time. Eventually, we made our way out to Valentia island to visit the Tetrapod tracks! The entire island is two miles long by a mile wide (if we're being generous), and the whole thing is adorable. On the north side of the island we hiked down to the rocks right above the water where they'd found some footprints from some of the first animals to drag themselves out of the ocean.

Nerd stuff: These first Tetrapods were in the Devonian

"Is this a good idea?"
"Probably not"

era, 380ish million years ago.  That means that Tyrannosaurus Rex (60ma) is closer to us than the Tetrapods. Even Stegosauruses (150ma) - more than twice as old as the T-rex, are still closer to us than the Tetrapods.  After spending days trying to understand the actual age of all the prehistoric ruins that surrounded us (the analogies that made it the most tactile were "130 generations" and "40x longer than I could ever hope to live") it was even more humbling to then come face to face with evidence that that's only .001%  of terrestrial life... (.001% is the length ratio between an aphid and a football pitch).  When you see me staring off into the distance... it's usually this sort of thing running through my head.

So while what the fossils represent is enjoyably mind-boggling, the fossils themselves are pretty lackluster. After admiring them (briefly) we jumped the back fence, and climbed down to the water itself to check out the rest of the cool rocks (which are lower and therefor  even older?) before hiking back up to the carpark.

(Ethan) scrambled up the opposite hill.

While we were on the north coast of Valentia, we stopped by the local quarry. It was much cooler than we expected! A brief stop, but definitively neat to look into the massive cave that they are excavating (large enough to drive large front-end loaders and dump trucks through), see all the water trickling down, and play on the shattered slate discarded around the periphery of the site.

Even their quarries are beautiful

Finally, it was 10am and the Skellig Experience was finally open. This visitor center had a few brief films and a number of exhibits on the Skellig islands, the marine life, the monastic life, and the lighthouses that were there. It was realllly a remote place back in the day. You had to go to the end of the known empire (the British Isles), then go to the furthest isle (Ireland), head to the furthest corner of the island, and then row to the furthest rock sticking out of the ocean - the edge of the known universe at the time. It's really fitting that that's where Luke goes to run away in episode 7.  And you bet they play up the StarWars connection.

(Sheep Hustler)

After the Skellig Experience, we headed across the ferry to see a castle! The castle was closed. There were numerous numerous signs telling you to piss off and go somewhere else if you want to get close to ruins. So we did! The Cahergall Fort is a huge stone ring built around year 500, much like the last ring fort we saw. This one was thicker and taller, and had some stonework inside. But before we got to the fort we were accosted by a man who basically threw his sheep in our arms. After passing the lamb around, taking some pictures, and forking over our (minimal) spare change for the privilege, we finally hiked up to the fort.

 It was great! Amazing views (including of the closed castle and the next fort), and enough wind that you had to be cognizant not to get blown off the top. So it was of course great fun. While we were there, we also hiked a half-mile up to the Leacanabuile fort, another 1500yo ring... stopping every 100ft to grab a handful of blackberries that grow wild all over southern Ireland. This ring was shorter and it had the foundations of a number of interior buildings inside, and a creepy secret passage! Souterrains were a spot to hide when you got invaded, and a common feature in Irish forts and castles. I really wanted to wriggle down it, but more than that I wanted not to spend a day in muddy clothes, so I gave that one a pass - I must be getting old. And just now as I'm writing this I  realize I had clean clothes in the car. I was going to link to pictures of the insides online... but I can't find any. Time to go back!

(Dad)

Finally having gotten our fill of castles (and berries), we headed off to Dingle. We stopped at a super market for lunch, and drove some amazing cliff roads admiring the views and the multitudes of sheep. We stopped at the dingle distillery to try their whiskey, but their tours were all booked and they had no samples, so we headed on to our AirBNB directly. The roads got narrower, the views better, the cliffs steeper, and the weather worse(r) as we made our way out. It had just started spitting rain when we got to the house. The whole property is pretty sweet. An old stone fisherman's cottage, it has stonework throughout the house and grounds (including a patio, shed, fireplaces, and fake prehistoric "beehive" cottage in the back yard). We're a quarter mile from (Coumeenoole / Slea Head)
beach where the waves violently attack the coast, and Dunmoore Head is just past that - the very tip of the dingle peninsula (and used in Star Wars when they needed a stand-in for Skellig Michael - in case, you know, all the boats shut down). Truly astounding views everywhere, even just out the windows. We'll have to hike to some of those tomorrow.

We headed back towards civilization for dinner, and after striking out a few times ended up at Páidí Ó Sé's, which had a great stew, great sandwiches, and great beer. Adam and Ethan played billiards, I played with the peltier-effect fireplace fan, and mom kept an eye on the TV for the weather. By the time we'd finished dinner it was properly raining and we headed back home to play cards... but we're all pretty tired. I'm either coming down with something or jetlag is hitting hard... I guess we'll know tomorrow morning!

Cahergall Fort and Ballycarbery Castle as seen from Leacanabuile Fort

Ireland Day 2: Ring of Kerry

We slept in till 9:00, and had some very meh free breakfast. The sausage in particular was sort of frightful, so we tried to feed it to the neighbor's cat. He spurned it, as did a crow, but luckily the third crow wasn't as picky.

(Adam)

Then we set off driving!  The first thing we saw was the town of Kenmare - which was very cute. We started at some random bridge we thought was Cromwell's bridge (it had nothing to do with Cromwell), but from that bridge we spotted an older bridge and made our way over to the actual Cromwell's Bridge (c. 1700, and also has nothing to do with Cromwell). After clambering over the bridge and taking too many photos, we continued just out of town to the old Druid circle.  

I think they were sacrificing him.
(Dad)

This stone circle is prehistoric, dating back 3000 - 4000 years, but rather small compared to Avebury or Stonehenge (which I'm now realizing I wrote up in a journal ((with a pen!)) and not a blog, and thus can't link to...).This is also where we were introduced to a bizarre concept - individuals owning ancient ruins. The ring was on land owned by a local family, and they put up a donation box (makes sense) and then planted trees all around so you couldn't see it until you'd donated your $2€ (total Blarney). Regardless of crass profiteering, it's always enjoyable to catch a glimpse into the lives of those that lived so far before us.

(Mom, regretting everything)

After walking back into town we picked up lunch, browsed a few stores, and set out for the Ring of Kerry to find the perfect picnic spot.  We found all those roads we were warned about! The roads were either narrow - and shared with busses - or very narrow - where meeting another car means one of you reverses to a wide spot. Despite setting off down some of these very promising back roads (that mom super didn't want to go down), we didn't find any good picnic spots, and overcome by hunger around 2pm we chose a scenic overlook at random. Great choice, as in addition to a great view it came with a plethora of wild blackberries, most of which were delicious.  

(Adam)

Continuing around the ring we veered off on some more single-track and headed to an ancient fort in the hills).  Staigue Fort is great, just dry-stacked stones around 90' in diameter, 12' thick, and 12'-18' tall. A few rooms within the walls, and plenty of stairs up to the top. It would have been a great fort even today, let alone 1600 years ago. Also, as someone who love stacking stones to building anything, it is cheering to see that this was a love shared throughout history.  We took pictures, tried to do pullups with random climbing handholds, and talked to an Australian couple - it was quite humorous to travel hours down empty roads and trails and then Bam. People in the middle of nowhere. Only a handful, so we essentially had the site to ourselves which is always nice.

We returned to the Ring of Kerry and kept taking detours further into nowhere on smaller and smaller roads (Mom was having a coronary about once a minute), and on one of these we saw an old falling-down church on the coast! Awesome! We chose to pull over and check it out. Ballinskellig Priory was an old abbey where the monks moved in the 12th century after giving up on Skellig Michael.  Ethan and I decided to jog a third a mile down the beach to the 16th century tower out on the point of the peninsula which was also great!  After free climbing up to the second floor we found out it had an easily-accessed spiral staircase we could have used.. but this way was more fun and makes up for the staircase I skipped in England and regretted ever since.  A bit more poking around, a few more pictures, and another jog back up the beach.  Finally having expended our day's allotment of wanderlust, we set off over the ridge (great views, very windy) for Portmagee where we are staying for the night.

In Portmagee we finally got in touch our captain for tomorrow - only to learn that the island of Skellig Micheal was closed due to bad weather, and thus our trip was cancelled. :'( .  So we had dinner at a seafood restaurant / pub. After dinner we wandered the seafront (the entire town is only two blocks long) and spoke with a young lad around eight years old, whose father captained for another tour company. He said they didn't know if they were going out yet, but they'd hear tomorrow morning.  He ALSO let us know that our boat was broken so our captain definitely wouldn't be going out.  We're going to yelp him so hard...

We finished off the day playing cards next to the peat fire (and with a visit from the landlady that turned into a 45 minute omnidirectional conversation. We know all about her, her family, her husband's health, their sheep, the town gossip, everything).  We didn't do as much today as yesterday, but we saw so many beautiful roads. Great day, great chats with family, great weather, and soooo pretty.

The nice thing about Adam stealing your shot is later when yours is blurry you can steal his right back...