To Galway!

Here's a shot from the "highway" (two lanes, a wincy shoulder and 100 km/hr speed limit) between Derry and Galway. We neglected to take the "scenic route" this time, who knows what we missed?Galway's on the sea and had lost of tourists.
Also, apparently Darcy from Pride and Prejudice has a roundabout named after him here:
It takes a big man to live in a pink house. And a bigger man to laugh at that man...
I have no idea what this hotel was about:
All in all, Galway was pretty uneventful. Lots of university students. We also had our best and worst food here, but that deserves it's own post.

Dunluce Castle

Someone (we think it was a travel brochure) informed us that this was the most romantic castle in all of Ireland. Still, it was a little out of our way AND we had already spent an exhaustingly long day seeing a lot of beautiful things and driving and stuff... But besides it be allegedly the most romantic, we also heard that half of it fell into the ocean, so we decided to drive out and seeWe arrived a little after it closed. Our camera battery was dead, so these pictures are from the internet.
We made up stories about why it was the most romantic. Most of the stories included an element about the castle falling into the see and some tragic lost love.
If you'd prefer wikipedia to that kind of fancy, you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunluce_Castle. This next picture shows part of the grounds we were able to explore because it wasn't "inside" (which was locked for the night). We got to see most of it.
Before we went up the stairs to the underside of the arched bridge in this picture above, Nicole found an opening in the rock on the right that lead to a cave. There was a HUGE cavern underneath the far end of the castle! It was difficult to get to, but it was well worth it. We decided that this was why this was the most romantic castle:
This picture from online is a great representation of it. They had it labeled as "Mermaid's Cave."

Giant's Causeway (1)

After a long day that included Carrickfergus Castle, Torr Head, The Beach, Beautiful Coastal Scenery, and the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, we finally made it to Giant's Causeway. The causeway is a "World Heritage Site" with loads of history and legend and whatnot behind it. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant's_Causeway) Anyway, we already had a day of spectacular vistas and a lot of nerve racking driving, so we were pretty fatigued. Plus we didn't pay for parking and were a little nervous about that. Still we tried to put on a brave face and enjoy this treasure.

Here's my brave face.
Can you find Nicole in this next photo? (Hint, she's in the middle).
So the causeway is a series of like 38,000* hexagonal columned rocks. If you don't believe the legend about the giants some "scientists" claim the rocks became like that because of volcanoes. I'll let you decide which is more likely.
Here's my in my "brave" stance (to go with our brave faces) at the edge of the world.
Here's the view from the end of the earth back (we did a lot of camera tossing since we only have one).

*We didn't actually count past 30, but there sure were a lot.

Giant's Causeway (2)

[This is part two, part one is below]

I don't know too many other places were you can get such great compositions without the aid of Photoshop. This one has verde mountains, the Mighty Atlantic, Unique Volcanic paths, and Nicole.The rocks were actually big enough that we were able to get a few auto shots of both of us:
A Giant Silhouette:
Just chillin' on my cliff face:
Sure this is an impressive shot of Nicole sitting in the middle of a cliff, but do you have any idea how difficult it was to set up?*
*Answer: Not very.

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

This was actually one of our scheduled stops, one of the big ones that we traveled 4000 miles specifically to see. It's a really small island on the North tip of Ireland. You can only get to it via a rope bridge. The coastline was gorgeous. A sign post on the way in warned that we were entering an "area of outstanding natural beauty" and it wasn't an exaggeration.The bridge, and Nicole on video camera.
We actually got the camera to balance on a rock with the auto-timer for this one. We're standing on about 15 inches worth of ledge here on the side of the island.
I have an awesome wife. She let me climb out, down the cliff, to this bit of the island that protrudes a bit into the Irish Sea. Getting there wasn't too hard but getting back was more of a challenge.
Isn't she lovely. Those are limestone cliffs in the background.

Torr Head

Again on the advice of our B&B hostess we took this tiny road that tour buses aren't allowed on that goes into some beautiful vistas. To get there we had to take roads with over a 30% incline. The road was for two cars but it was thinner than a typical single lane in Utah. When there was oncoming traffic, we had to pull over into the bushes and hold our breath. Once a particularly large truck passed by while we where near the top of one of those really steep hills. After pulling over, we stalled. Twice. Then I held down the clutch, break, and gas until I burned rubber and we were finally able to achieve the top of the hill.* It was well worth it. We had classic views like this:There's Torr Head itself in the background right above my head. It was a pretty bright day.
At Torr Head, we climbed to the roof of an abandoned Coast Guard tower and took this picture. That's Scotland behind me.
Up the Irish coast (still on the roof). It was a bit windy. Great Colour to the Irish Sea there.
For a little context, it's at marker "A" on this Google Map:
And Zoomed in, it's the point jutting out into the Irish Sea.
*You could say "At that moment I became a MANual driver" but that would be a really lame pun.

Carrickfergus Castle

On the advice of our B&B host, we stopped by Carrickgergus Castle on the way to Giant's Causeway. We had a ton of fun running amok inside. It's also fairly large. Here's most of it:Me and my cannons... defending the keep.
A lady in waiting, and in an alcove:
Fine halls AND tapestries
The first move in GIANT Chess is always the hardest, cause the pieces are so heavy.

Belfast!

This was the nicest time I've had in Belfast. Our B&B was lovely, although the landlady was from Germany, so we had to goto a chippie to hear the tongue of the North. We made it before dark, despite the highway being under construction and a day that started in Dublin and included the Hill of Tara, ended with a visit to Belfast Castle:
Sunday was nice weather, this beach is at Newtonabbey, where I lived about 8 years ago. In the background of this picture is Belfast, which looks quite nice small.
Moving the camera over a bit and we get Cavehill, which I lived on both sides of.
We accidentally found our way to the top of Cavehill latter. Here's what that looks like:

The Hill of Tara

In Ancient Days the Druids locked people up here:It's called "The Mound of Hostages" inside was the old Runic rock:
Near by is the Ancient Holy Site of the High Kings of Ireland. The rock on my left (your right) is the old anointing stone.
(We ordered extra mist that day to make it look just right)

In the foreground of this next one is a boy cow. In the background is St. Patrick's Church (well, now the Hill of Tara visitor's center). I have it on good authority that he was a shockin' holy saint (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0q-_gWOYjY)

Not too far away, we stumbled on this hidden little well. Besides being called Cormac's well and St. Patrick's well, it is also known as: The Well of the Numbering of the Clans, Dark Eye, The Healer, The Well of the White Cow, and the well of Tara.

To get a sense of it all, here's St. Patrick's Rune (by Madeline L'engle)

At Tara in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place
By God’s almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness!

Ireland, Dublin

Our terrifically fun chauffeur to the airport!

16 or so hours later on Friday morning, our first glimpse of Dublin was from the side window of a packed Transit van going twice the appropriate speed limit on a road half the appropriate width.

We were a bit bummed when the car rental cost more than twice the advertised price due to un-advertised fees and insurance :( But, Brent was soo back in gear and showing me his old areas on the map.

Driving in Ireland was an adventure Brent tried to warn me about, but I had to actually experience it to believe it. It's not just driving on the left, it's driving on the Left, with people zipping around at twice any sane speed within inches of your vehicle, which is within inches of parked vehicles sandwiched on the other side. It's like a free roller coaster... except, it wasn't free.

Later that evening we walked to downtown Dublin and wandered about. I estimate it was at least an 8 mile walk!

It was beautiful. Except for the River Liffy is kind of gross. We call it the "Icky Liffy."

Christchurch cathedral is really breathtaking!

Luckily our pictures with Molly Malone helped keep her modest.

We ran into St. Steven's Green briefly. Pretty green indeed.
At the end, I was TIRED, but even the random city stream near our hotel made everything seem beautiful.