After driving through the Burren we finally reached the famous Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are seen in the following films: The Princess Bride and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
The cliffs rise 120 meters (394 ft) above the Atlantic Ocean at Hag's Head (Irish: Ceann na Cailleach), and reach their maximum height of 214 meters (702 ft) just north of O'Brien's Tower, eight kilometres away. The cliffs boast one of Ireland's most spectacular views...The cliffs consist mainly of beds of Namurian shale and sandstone, with the oldest rocks being found at the bottom of the cliffs. It is possible to see 300 million year old river channels cutting through the base of the cliffs.
After going from Dublin to Newgrange and Trim Castle we stayed in Galway which is on the west coast of Ireland. The intent after Dublin, where we reserved rooms, was to just find B&Bs where ever we ended up that night. The plan this night was to stay in Galway at The Spanish Arch which was recommended by the Michelin Green Guide, but unfortunately it was booked.
So we asked them if they recommended any place for a family of 4 near there and they directed us to the hostel two doors down. So we headed there and they were booked and so we asked them the same question. Then they got on the phone and called someone they knew near there who had a B&B and that she would come and pick us up and we could follow here to her place.
It ended up being a little old lady who had a B&B in her home with two bedrooms. So we took her up on the offer and stayed there. We had dinner at a little Irish pub near her house which was fantastic. It was here that we first tried the Black Pudding which "is a type of sausage made by cooking blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled." It wasn't horrible but I will tell you I would not order again. I asked several people what one is obligated to eat while in Ireland and they all said "Black Pudding" without skipping a beat. I truly don't know why they like it.
We got up that morning and the plan was to head south toward Bunratty where we'd go to the castle and stay the night around there. The problem was that we had a tough time getting out of the B&B because the very, very nice lady would not stop talking. After talking with the people at the hotel in Dublin and after listening to this lady talk about her cat named Elvis and her pilgrimages to Catholic sites for 30 minutes straight without taking a breath it became clear that the Irish speak English faster than any other English speaking culture that I've ever experienced. I think we had whiplash after that visit.
So after successfully escaping we got in the car and drove south through the Burren on the way to the Cliffs of Moher. The rock in this area was amazing. Not only was the ground covered with it, according to Nicole, it is purple (I couldn't tell because I am colorblind). According to the website:
The word "Burren" comes from an Irish word "Boíreann" meaning a rocky place. This is an extremely appropriate name when you consider the lack of soil cover and the extent of exposed Limestone Pavement.
The Burren is underlain by limestones of the Lower Carboniferous (Visean) period. The limestone formed as sediments in a tropical sea which covered most of Ireland approximately 350 million years ago. These sediments were compressed into horizontal strata and contain fossil corals, sea urchins, sea-lilies (crinnoids) and ammonites.
Trim Castle is the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Europe, and Ireland's largest castle. It is noted for its appearance in Braveheart. We learned on our tour that castles were actually white on the inside and out because they put lime to smooth it out and keep it clean. We also learned that they used a lot of wood as well in the construction of the castles.
We also learned that they would hang their clothes over the toilets to kill the bugs and lice in them by means of the gases that eminated from the urine. Nice huh?! So they smelled like urine all the time but they didn't have bugs and lice on them. Sounds nice eh!
Newgrange is a passage tomb, possibly even a temple, constructed over 5,000 years ago (about 3,200 B.C.), making it older than Stonehenge in England and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. It was built by an ancient celtic farming community.
One of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, and indeed the most famous of all Irish prehistoric sites. Newgrange was built in such a way that at dawn on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, a narrow beam of sunlight for a very short time illuminates the floor of the chamber at the end of the long passageway.
Temple Bar, which takes its name from Sir William Temple, Provost of Trinity (1928-99), who owned land which included a sand bar on the south bank of the river, is a medieval network of narrow cobbled streets and courts " promoted as 'Dublin's cultural quarter.'"
Kilmainham Gaol was "built in 1796" and is a "witness to Ireland's turbulent passage from the late eighteenth to early twentieth century. Prisoners from the United Irish Rebellion of 1796, the Emmet Rebellion of 1803, the Great Famine of 1845 to 1851, the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848, the Fenian Rebellion of 1867, the Land War of the 1880s, the Easter Rising of 1916, the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War were held and often executed here."
They actually imprisoned children here as well as adults. It was quite interesting, especially in light of the fact that we had just recently visited Alcatraz. Wikipedia discusses this and provides a list of the former prisoners.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is the other and less old but larger mediæval cathedral in Dublin, and is the largest church in Ireland.
This cathedral was built in honor of Ireland’s patron saint, Saint Patrick. It is adjacent to the famous well where tradition has it Saint Patrick baptized converts on his visit to Dublin.
heritage centre, located in central Dublin, at the heart of the medieval city. These exciting exhibitions contain life-sized reconstructions which will take you back to Viking and Medieval Dublin with a variety of sights, sounds, and smells!
According to the much revered (by the French at least) Michelin Green Guide:
"The name Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath) is derived from Dubh Linn, the Dark Pool at the confluence of the Poddle and the Liffey; the Irish name, Baile Átha Cliath, means the city by the hurdle ford."
Originally founded as a Viking settlement, it evolved into the Kingdom of Dublin and became the island's primary city following the Norman invasion...The city's original pronunciation is preserved in Old Norse as Dyflin, Old English as Difelin, and modern Manx as Divlyn. Historically, in the traditional Gaelic script used for the Irish language, bh was written with a dot over the b, rendering 'Duḃ Linn' or 'Duḃlinn'. Those without a knowledge of Irish omitted the dot and spelled the name as Dublin.
We spent our first three nights in Dublin at a B&B called "The Townhouse." This was a spectular and extremely friendly hotel with good food and a great location. It came recommended by an Irish friend here in France and I recommend it now as well.
The first day we took the Dublin siteseeing bus tour which stops at all of the sites with a live commentary. We forgot it was daylight savings time and so were an hour early. That turned out to be good because then we were at the buses just a tiny bit before their first departure.
We rode the bus almost around the entire loop before getting off at Kilmainham Gaol. After that we visited Dubinia and then the Guinness Brewery. Unfortunately all the churches were closed when we started getting off the bus and visiting the sites because it was Sunday.
So we visited Christ Church, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and Trinity College on Day 2 in Dublin. Then we also visited St. Stephen's Green and Temple Bar to do a little shopping.
On the first night there we went to the movie theaters to see a movie which we hadn't had the opportunity to do since being the US. Unfortunately the movie we saw was completely worthless and a waste of time. It was called, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
Leased for 9,000 years in 1759 by Arthur Guinness at £45 per year, St. James's Gate has been the home of Guinness ever since. It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and was the largest in the world in 1914, covering 64 acres. Although no longer the largest brewery in the world, it is still the largest brewer of stout in the world.
What's missing is a picture of the Gravity Bar which has lots of Guinness and provides the best 360 degree view of all of Dublin.
This is a picture of the outside of Dublinia which is a Viking museum/exhibit.
"Molly Malone" (also known as "Cockles and Mussels" or "In Dublin's Fair City") is a popular song, set in Dublin, Ireland, which has become the unofficial anthem of Dublin City...The song tells the tale of a beautiful fishmonger who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin, but who died young, of a fever.
Take a listen...
I can't remember what this was but it was a cool little castle looking thing that I saw on the bus ride.
These are pictures just outside of St. Stephen's Green at the end of Grafton Street. The monument shown is called Fusiliers' Arch and it "commemorates the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died in the Second Boer War." This is seen in the movie Once at the beginning. This website discusses Dublin and references this movie.
The very handy Michelin Green Guide says this about Grafton Street,
Dublin's finest shopping street is now a bustling pedestrian precinct and a favourite haunt of street musicians.
We were fortunate to get to see a really good Irish band called, "Mutefish." We ended up buying their CD and, much to Nicole's chagrin, I listened to it the entire trip.
Notice the difference in one letter which is T.K. Maxx instead of T.J. Maxx in Europe (UK and Ireland). We had to do a double take on this one. At the end is a little leprechaun who somewhat resembles my son.
This was a sign we saw in Dublin that looked quite bizarre. We are still not sure what "The Sick Indigent Roomkeepers Society" is but it was founded in 1790. According to this site:
It's the charity with the very odd name, the Sick & Indigent Roomkeepers' Society, but in fact it's the oldest charity in Dublin, still helping the sick and the destitute in the inner city. It was founded in 1790 by a group of eleven concerned citizens, all of whom came from what might be politely called the middle class of society.
This next picture is of O'Connell Street and the spire. The second picture is of Rebekkah's leprechaun socks.
The Spire of Dublin, officially called the Monument of Light, "was commissioned as part of a redesigned street layout in 1999...to improve the streetscape." Locals also call it such names as:
The Spire in the Mire (a reflection on O'Connell Street's unsavoury reputation)
The Stiletto in the Ghetto (O'Connell St is a very short distance from some of Dublin's poorest and most drug-ruined communities)
The Nail in the Pale
The Stiffy by the Liffey (a reference to Dublin's principal waterway, the River Liffey)
The Pin in the Bin (a reference to the perceived amount of litter in O'Connell Street)
The Stick
The Eyeful Tower
The Rod to God
The Erection at the Intersection
According to the tour guide Dubliner's on the whole think it was a complete waste of €4,000,000 which they believe could have been much better spent elsewhere to improve things on the street.
In France they have a week and a half of vacation part of which is called La Toussaint (All Saints). So we took that opportunity to take a ferry to Ireland. We left from Cherbourg and took an 18 hour ferry ride to Rosslare, Ireland.
The idea was to drive north on the west coast toward Dublin, then to the west and down the west coast, then east along the south coast. This basically was a complete circle along the coasts (except the north coast which is the UK), starting and ending at Rosslare.
After waiting for about 30 minutes at the border patrol and listening to the agent talk to his friend's cousin about what she did for the weekend (not sure if that was really who he was talking to, but it sounded funny anyway) and watching a little Dukes of Hazzard we finally left to drive north.
The first stop was a little place called Glendalough (Gleann dá locha, literally meaning ‘Glen of the two lakes’) which is an early medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin, a hermit priest. The site had a nice welcome center which showed a 15 minute movie about the site. To summarize the site was basically ruins from the buildings along with a fully intact tower and a cemetary.
Then we hiked up past the first lake up to the second lake. In retrospect I wished we could have spent more time up at the lake because it was simply amazing. The wind comes down through the mountains to the lake at a crazy speed much like the winds that come down through the Columbia River gorge in the Northwest United States. You could literally lean into the wind and it would hold you up. This created huge waves the lake. I can imagine that this may have been what the Sea of Galilee is like (which is also a lake, though obviously much larger that this one).
For Rebekkah's 13th birthday (yes...she is officially no longer a pre-teen) she invited over around 15 kids from her school and we had a good ole' American birthday party. They played all sorts of games like "Chubby-Bunny," Musical Chairs, Hide and Seek, and several others that I do not know the name to. I grilled hot dogs with chips and soda. There were all sorts of snacks like rice-crispie treats and cookies. And the kids went to the Cocci-Market to get some fireworks. The kids showed up around 6pm and left around 10:30pm. I think everyone had a great time. Here are the edited pictures and some videos.
The fountain was created by French sculptor Gabriel Davioud from 1855-1860 and represents Saint Michel, protector of France, slaying a dragon. According to Wikipedia, "Originally, the fountain's central statue was supposed to depict Napoleon Bonaparte, but the original conception came under criticism from opponents of Napoleon III; it was finally decided that the statue would be an image of Saint Michael, the Archangel (Saint Michel in French), with two dragons that spout water into the fountain and figures of the four classical Cardinal virtues."
We also visited Le Jardin du Luxembourg towards the end of the day. The weather was just perfect. Relaxing in the gardens seems to be a very popular past-time for the French. I think we could definitely learn something from the French in this area.
Afterwards we got Pizza Hut take-out and had a picnic in the park. It was a blast!
The second day we went to the Sainte Chapelle which is a little known church located very near Notre Dame. This church "was built to house precious relics: Christ's crown of thorns, the Image of Edessa and thirty other relics of Christ that had been in the possession of Louis IX since August 1239, when it arrived from Venice in the hands of two Dominican friars." It was beautiful the morning we went since it was a little bit sunny but I can imagine it's much prettier on a really sunny afternoon. Also unfortunately, they were doing rennovations so you could not see some of the chapel. Nevertheless, here are the pictures...
The next place we visited while we were in Paris was the Pantheon. Many famous French people are buried here like Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Alexander Dumas, and Pierre and Marie Curie. Also inside was a cool pendulum that was built as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the earth (my geeky engineering friends will find the link interesting).
At the end of September I had a meeting/conference in Paris and so I decided to take the family and make a long weekend out of it. The first day we went to Versailles. It was amazing. Again the pictures don't do it justice. We rented a rowboat and went out on the canal. It was a blast. The weather was amazing. Unfortunately, the fountain wasn't on. I bet it's stunning it the spring. Here are the pictures....
One day Nicole got an itch to do a photoshoot and so she took these (it happens like that for Nicole...it comes in spurts). Apolline is a neighbor, good friend, and classmate of Rebekkah. She also happens to be the daughter of a colleague of mine. She has really taken very good care of Rebekkah since we've been here. Here are the pictures...
Here is our place in Urville-Nacqueville as well as our cars. The room with the TV is Micah's room, the room with the white dresser is Rebekkah's room, the room with all of the videos is the guest room, and the room with the green bedding is our room. I think the rest is self explanatory.
The last place we visited was a museum at the top of Mount Roule at Fort Roule called Le Musée de la Liberation or Liberation Museum. I was glad that it was free because it wasn't really that great. The view was really good though. Here are the pictures:
