IRELAND We are now on our last leg. Ireland is beautiful with its own character. We did not realize that Ireland is actually two different countries. Northern Ireland uses pounds (almost double the dollar) like England and The Republic of Ireland uses Euros (1.63 to the dollar) like the rest of Europe. They also speak two different languages!!! Monday June 2nd We flew into Dublin today and stayed at the Travelodge. (59 euros with no breakfast) We had dinner and planned for the next day. Tuesday June 3rd Today we traveled to south to a B&B in Mullinvat. (50 euros with no breakfast). We asked if we could not have breakfast again. After thinking about it for a while, she said yes and reduced the price by 10 euros. (One of her children cried at bedtime and before he went off to school.) Along the way we visited Powerscourt, Castletown, Brownshill Dolmen, Carlow and Kilkenny (black limestone). The country side seems to have fewer sheep and they use trees as borders instead of bushes. Wednesday June 4th We traveled south to Waterford and got there at 10:30 and stayed for four hours. (had “the” best lunch!!) We took a tour thru the factory and then the gift shop. Of course I bought some pieces of Waterford, but there was free shipping!!!! We drove south to the coast to see Dunmore East harbor. It was raining and windy, but it still was beautiful. There were several Thatch houses along the harbor and it reminded me of elf houses. Then we passed thru Dungaran, Youghal, and on to Cobh and now it was sunny, hot and calm!!! The weather sure does change quickly!!! We had lunch here and saw the Queenstown story. It is housed in a Victorian railway station and it is an exhibition detailing the town’s marine history. Cohb is also the port where almost three million people left Ireland during the famine years 1844-1848. We stayed in Cohb at a B&B and had only the first B!!! (55 euros) Thursday June 5th We were off to visit Cork, The Blarney Castle and I bought part of the Blarney Stone!!! Then off to Limerick and the King John’s Castle. We traveled to the Moher Cliffs which is one of the most dramatic stretches of Ireland’s coast. From there we saw the Poulnabrone Dolmen which is in the heart of the Burren’s limestone plateau. The last stop of the day was Dunguaire Castle. We found a B&B in Miltown (60 with no breakfast) and again we had no breakfast. The Irish in The Republic of Ireland were very cooperative with this request!! It really is amazing as you ride along you see a ruin popping up in a field. There are so many stone walls climbing up hills and diving down into the valleys as well as throughout the fields!! Friday June 6th Today we traveled to Sligo, Bundoran, Ballyshannon, Donegal and then on to Slieve League. This is the highest sea cliffs in Europe. They were magnificent not only for its sheer elevation but also for its color. The rock is streaked with shades of red, amber and ochre. The road to the cliffs had alarming switchbacks and had no protection from the sheer drop to the ocean. And the speed limit was 100 km (60 m/p/h) which was entirely too fast for these conditions, even Rudy had white knuckles !! But the ride was worth it!!! We then drove to Londonderry which is a walled city and in Northern Ireland where they use pounds and speak a different dilect. We went up and sown the streets in the walled city and then went to Limavady for the night. (This B&B would not reduce the price 50 lbs. for no breakfast!) Thank goodness for Roundabouts!! We used them many times to reread the signs and/or reread the map again to figure out which way to go. Saturday June 7th Today we traveled northeast to the coast. We visited Castlerock Castle, Dunluce Castle which is high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Our next stop was the Giant Causeway which is Ireland’s only World Heritage Site. Sixty-one million years ago, the volcanoes eruptions laid the foundation for these structures. Then 15,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age, when the land was still frozen, sea ice helped form the Giant Causeway, I took a bus ride to the edge of the Causeway to see the unusual shapes of its basalt columns. The Middle Causeway looks like a Honeycomb. It has about 37,000 basalt columns which extend from the cliffs down into the sea. The three sections are called the Grand, Middle and Little Causeways. Most of the columns are hexagonal, but some have four, five, eight or even ten sides and they measure about 12 inches across. It was fun to walk on them using them as steps going up and down the Causeway. Then we went to Belfast and visited St. Peter’s and passed the City Hall where there was a giant Ferris Wheel like the one in London. We have crossed the invisible border to The Republic of Ireland and are using euros again. We stayed at a B&B in Ballynahinch (50 lbs.) and since the price was the same with or without breakfast, we ate!! Sunday June 8th Today we traveled down to Newcastle to see the harbor and the boats. Because of the extreme tides, the boats sit on the bottom of the harbor when it is low tide. The boats look so sad listing to one side. We traveled to Newry and Dundalk and Rudy found a hotel near the Dublin airport in Swords. (89 euros) After we took a drive down O’Connell Street, Rudy returned the car since the hotel has a service to the airport. We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant which was next to the hotel and settled in for the night. Monday June 9th This morning we took a bus which was a two minute walk from the hotel. We traveled to the city of Dublin and took a bus tour. The tour took us down O’Connell Street again. In Georgian era, this street was the fashionable part of Dublin. However, the 1916 Easter Rising destroyed many of the fine buildings along the street. Today there are many shops and businesses in their place. Some of the interesting places included the Gate Theatre, the Rotunda Hospital, the Abbey Theatre, St. Mary’s Cathedral and the Custom House. We also saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral (1192), Ha’penny Bridge, Powerscourt House (1774), Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Temple Bar, the Dublin Zoo and Guinness (1759). The Guinness Brewery produces 4 million galloons of beer a year and half of it is consumed in Ireland. We went around the tour a second time to visit the things that interested us and to have lunch. We ate lunch at O’Neill’s and I had delicious lamb stew and an Irish coffee. Rudy had Bangers and Mash and then Rudy and I shared a Guinness or two!!! Since we had a huge lunch, we decided not to have a big dinner. As we got off the bus, there was a Texaco Gas Station with a hot and cold deli. We brought our dinner and walked back to the hotel to eat our last dinner in Europe!!! CRITIQUE OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND Ireland seemed to have more newly built houses, bigger towns and more people. Ireland has less coastline then Scotland. Scotland has a great deal of peninsulas all their coast. Scotland is filled with old stone houses. Ireland has over 650 Churches and over 950 pubs. Scotland has more castles and many more sheep than Ireland in my estimate!! I love the phrases that they use; that’s Brilliant,Spot on, lovely and so on.