Irish Details - Dublin Part 3

Our last day in Ireland was spent hoofing it around town, catching a few things I'd seen before and a few new things, too.  All in all, a great day.

Our first stop was Trinity College, which has both the Book of Kells (an elaborately illuminated medieval copy of the Gospels) and the spectacular Old Library.  This is a panoramic shot of the inside of the Old Library.  Yes, that's two stories of floor to ceiling book shelves in ornate galleries.

Next up was a visit to the National Museum, which houses archaeological finds from all over the island.  Jewel-encrusted was a common descriptor :)

Then, a nice walk through two big public open spaces:  St. Stephen's Green and Merrion Square.  These are Mute Swans in the ponds at St. Stephen's.

The day also included traipsing through residential neighborhoods with the fancy Georgian doorways the city is so known for.

We ended the walking tour with a trip to the Chester Beatty Museum, located in Dublin Castle.  The Castle is a big sprawling office complex, of which only a small part looks anything like a castle.

I couldn't take pictures inside the museum here, but it was fantastic.  Chester Beatty collected early manuscripts and illuminated scrolls from around the world.  There are amazing exhibits on Japanese birds & flowers art, early copies of the Quran, fragments of early Bible texts, and so much more.

I could take pictures of the park-like Oriental Gardens inside the Castle walls.  Later this night, we decided to simply visit a supermarket and make a picnic dinner for our last meal in Dublin.  A nice thing about the city is that little and big markets are within walking distance, and prices are really no different than I would expect in the stores I normally shop at here.

We were able to pull this together for about 20 Euros, including some beverages.  A very nice way to end the day, and the trip!

Irish Details - Dublin Part 2

Our first full day in Dublin did not go as planned, for better or worse.  Poor Justin, who had not been feeling well at all, felt even worse.

We hadn't planned on navigating the Irish health care system, but unbelievably, we were able to visit a doctor, get and fill two prescriptions, and have him back in bed at the apartment in less than an hour and a half.

Since we had spent most of the trip to date walking through fields, I was sorely behind on buying souvenirs.  So I took the opportunity to wander through the city, shopping as I went.  Here's my afternoon:

This is Georges Street Arcade, a market with stalls and more permanent stores.  I spent way too much money in this shop, they had a lot of quirky and creative handmade glass crafts.

After this, I was getting hungry, so found lunch near the arcade, just by reading signboards till I found a lunch special that piqued my interest.  This place had Spanish onion soup and a hummus sandwich.

Alcohol was a definite no-no for Justin, so I took this chance to visit a little microbrewery near our apartment, and sneak a drink.  Ireland has absolutely no shortage of pubs, but really, the variety of beers available is pretty small.  The craft brewery trend hasn't hit them head on like it has us here in the U.S.!

Another great thing about Dublin - there are almost as many bookstores as there are pubs.  Which is saying something!  I spent some pleasant minutes knocking around in a few, and picked up a nice little stack of reads.  Later, I went down to the Queen of Tarts in Cow's Lane, and had a wonderful dinner paired with a chocolate cake slice done up to go.

Walking around on my own in large foreign cities isn't something I'd necessarily plan to do, or even think would be fun, but faced with it, I actually had a really nice day.  Fortunately, in the mean time, the medicines had sent Justin on the mend, so we could do some joint sightseeing on our last full day in the city.

Irish Details - Dublin Part 1

This morning we woke up in Portstewart, on the Northern Irish coast, knowing we needed to be in Dublin by midafternoon, and also knowing we needed to do it using multiple forms of public transportation.

And you know what?  It really wasn't difficult!  We caught a local bus a few blocks from our B&B, which took us to the Coleraine Train Station.

From here, we were able to reach the bus and train center in Belfast, and from Belfast, we could get the same coach bus line that brought us up to Belfast from the Dublin airport at the beginning of the adventure.  About five hours later, we were standing in downtown Dublin, crossing our fingers and hoping our connection with our lodging would show up to meet us.

See, instead of booking a hotel, we used VRBO.com to find a small apartment in a great location, for an extremely reasonable price.  The building we stayed in is the one just to the left of the street light in the picture above.  It was such a nice base - laundry, refrigerator, cooktop - and in a wonderful location.

The little alleyway we were off of is called Cow's Lane, which also housed a great restaurant and a very nice local bookstore.  I was in heaven  :)

For our first Dublin meal, Justin requested something from the Asian spectrum.  We lucked into this little Malaysian restaurant, located right on the river.  It was some of the most incredible food of any type we had all trip.  I had some sort of spicy, peanutty, shrimpy stuff.

A few more scenes from that first day:

The Ha'penny Bridge, a pedestrian way over the River Liffey.

The bookstore in the alley.  It was called The Gutter in homage to Oscare Wilde, whose famous saying is hanging in the window.

And this is Trinity Cathedral, one of the city's landmark buildings.  It was about one block up the street from us, and one evening, its bell tower played for around an hour.  It was quite lovely.

Irish Details - the Fifth Day

This was our last scheduled day of walking, but we decided to go off-course a little bit by visiting Bushmills Distillery, and then making up the time by catching a ride up to Dunluce Castle with our B&B hostess.

Bushmills claims to be the oldest distillery in Ireland, at least for one that's been in continuous production.  Their original license was issued in something like 1604!  In any case, the grounds were lovely, and the products tasty.

Some British pound notes are printed by the Bank of Ireland.  These notes have the Bushmills building on the reverse side.

At the end of the tour, you're welcome to a complimentary tasting of whiskey.  If I remember correctly, the one on the left is a Reserve that you can only get there, at the distillery.  I like bourbon, so I suspected I'd like this stuff, and I was right, I do!

Next, we were off to Dunluce Castle.  Unlike Dunseverick, this one is mostly there.  Dunluce was the seat of the O'Donnells.  They abandoned the castle sometime in the 1600s, when part of the kitchens fell into the sea, taking people with it.  

Above is the view from the courtyard and stables, looking down to the main residential portions of the castle.  The next photo shows the interior of the castle itself.

You can see how precariously a great deal of the castle is perched:

As we were wrapping up our time here, it started to rain.  Not just drizzle, but actual strong rain with a nice cold breeze to whip it around.  We contemplated walking the 9 miles to our B&B for the night, or the 3 miles to the nearest town to catch a bus, but neither seemed like a great idea (at this point, Justin was starting to feel pretty rough from a stomach bug, and I had a deep blister the size of Kansas on my foot).  Staff at the castle advised us that buses do come right by the castle's gates, but the next one wouldn't be there for another two hours.

We could have been in an uncomfortable position, but fortunately for us, an adorable little tea shop sits right outside the front gates of the castle.  We had some wonderful soups and frou frou drinks while we waited for the bus.

These were chai lattes, and very delicious on a cold day.  The cottage also had a peat fire, which was just the perfect thing.

After this, we were able to catch the bus with little fuss and make it out to Portstewart for our last night in Northern Ireland.  The weather was a little better, with sun breaking through betwixt and between rain showers.

This was the view from the little fast food restaurant we found dinner in, on Portstewart Strand.  This is looking westward, toward Mussenden Temple.  A nice, relaxing way to end a long day.  So, it turns out we didn't walk much at all on our last day of hill walking, but that was okay.  Other walkers doing the same itinerary were staying at our B&B and told us it was a miserable slog, so we're glad we skipped it!

Irish Details - the Fourth Day

This day, we finally hiked along a waymarked trail, the Ulster Way.  This was a 10-mile day, and I was doing it on pretty beat-up feet.  But we made it, and in good time!

This walk started out at Ballintoy village and ended at the Giant's Causeway.  There were a few neat stops along the way, including St. Gobbans, which is thought to be the smallest church in Ireland.  Although it sounds like no one's ever checked to be sure!

Yep, it's small!  Right after this, the trail passed around a headland through a hole in the rock face.  This was a really neat stretch of trail, although a little crazy, too.  Back before the church, it looks like a high tide would have made the way impassable.

After this, we walked for quite a way through sheep fields.  It amazed me then and it still amazes me now to think of sheep grazing a few yards away from the ocean.  In fact, I'm guessing they're responsible for these complex spiral paths ...

Soon, we came upon what little is left of Dunseverick Castle.  I believe this isn't even part of the castle proper, but more of an outbuilding or a kitchen.  The castle itself has fallen into the sea, an unfortunate side effect of building that close to the shore.

Soon after Dunseverick, we seemed to walk up and up, around headland after headland, each one a little higher than the last.  Eventually we passed an area called Half Moon Bay, if I recall correctly.

We started somewhere out there in the middle distance, along the flat part of the coast, so you can see how far we've come.  (We were barely half way at this point!)

After a few more miles of lonely rugged coastline, we began to meet more and more people.  This is how we knew we were getting close to the Giant's Causeway.

This is one of the most well-known attractions in Ireland, an area of the coast with hexagonal granite columns stretching out into the sea, in legend the home of the giant Finn MacCool.

I have to say, it's lovely.  But, it was a little underwhelming after three days of exploring just as rugged and just as lovely coastlines.

  

I did enjoy the rock formation known as the Camel - it's fairly realistic, as far as these kinds of things go!

We ended the day with a really nice tea in our room at the B&B, quite a good restorative.

The pictures were never particularly successful, but this B&B had plenty of bird feeders in their backyard and our room was positioned to see them.  I had a great time watching, and even caught a few life birds that I saw nowhere else on this trip, including the European Goldfinch, and a Common Redpoll.  I'll try to do a separate post for those!

Irish Details - the Third Day, Part 2

Ok, we left off with the donkey braying us into Carrick-a-rede.  This is an attraction centered around a rope bridge that allowed salmon fishermen to reach a small island from the mainland.  Now it's tourists who cross the bridge.

Here's Justin, taking his chances:

I thought I might get a little weirded out by the crossing 80 feet above the sea, but it really wasn't unnerving.  On the island, I was pleased to see that several nesting seabirds were close enough for wonderful photographs.

This is a Northern Fulmar.  Fulmars and some other birds, like albatrosses, are known as "tubenoses" - look ,you can see the unique structure just above the bill on this bird.

And this the closest I got to a Razorbill. Razorbills are alcids, similar to Puffins.  Such interesting, elegant lines they have.  From this vantage point you could also see Larrybane, a cliffy bay that was apparently used as a set piece in HBO's very popular Game of Thrones series.

  

With this, we were off to Ballintoy to find dinner and some time off of our feet.

Ahhh, this'll do the trick!  Justin ordered the biggest burger in Ballintoy, if not the world, and I had a really good chicken curry.  We also learned that tobacco onions are really frizzled onions.

After this we caught a ride to Bushmills, where we crashed out, then woke to start what became our second-most grueling day of hiking!

Irish Details - the Third Day, Part 1

We were really looking forward to the third day, when we made the transition from Ballycastle to Bushmills.  Only (!) eight miles of hiking to get there.

What I did not realize was that the hike started out with 2-3 miles of uphill walking.  It was a relatively gentle slope, but still.  I needed a break!

This day was primarily walking on back country roads, and it wasn't long before we ran into a large group of Rooks.  These are large-ish black birds that have a very medieval look to them, to my eye.  Like they're totally prepared to go after your eyeballs if you sit still too long :)

Right about this time it also hit me that perhaps these birds are the source of the word "rookery," as we saw the birds were grouping around their nests.

Ireland is also the land of extensive and well-kept hedges.  We followed this road, until we reached a farmstead, turned in, and walked out along a fence line into a patch of woods known as Clare Wood.  Something we noticed throughout our time in Ireland is that land is held differently, at least in that many open fields could be accessed by walkers with no problem, despite it being technically private land.

Clare Wood had an entirely different feel than any other habitat we were in this trip.  Deeply quiet, green above and below, just very Druidy feeling, lol.  This was obviously a pine plantation, though, as the trees were in rows.  We heard an interesting bird song as we entered.  At first I thought it was some kind of owl, but eventually realized it was a Eurasian Collared-Dove singing.  We also heard a Cuckoo.  American cuckoos have really wild songs, but this one sounded like the namesake clock.  Finally, it all makes sense :)

This shot shows the view over the countryside, across the Moyle Sea, and to the western end of Rathlin Island - where we were Puffin gazing just yesterday!

Some sights along the way down to Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge:

An interesting butterfly that remains unidentified.  (Sorry, I only had the energy to figure out birds!)

A bin of what I assume are seed potatoes, waiting to be planted in the nearby field.

And a guard donkey, busily letting everyone know we're close by.  What was our destination today, you wonder?  We were heading to Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, and then to the village of Ballintoy for dinner and to wait for our ride to Bushmills.  I think I'll save that for the next post, though!