Ireland Trip Finale

29 July 2010 - Galway

In the morning, we walked all the way to Doolin cave (5km!). We saw the largest stalactite accessible to tourist, and currently second largest in the world! (Largest is in Brazil) A generous Irish drove us back to the hostel later after the cave tour :) and off we depart to Galway, our final destination.

Galway is famous for horse races, their pub party is more orderly compared to those in Cork too! I love the night atmosphere, but my camera can't take the night views. We had a 14 euro chinese buffet (which is the most expensive meal so far) since it will be our last day in Ireland!

Horse race in Galway!

Cruiser in the port!

Early next morning we say goodbye to Galway and Ireland, for we are going back to Liverpool..

Ireland Trip 2

24 July 2010 - Cork

After the Guinness Warehouse visit, we went to Cork. Here we made a mistake of not prebooking a train ticket and had to waste more time and money. By the time we arrive at Cork, it was almost dark. We had the best Indian/Pakistani Buffet there, but quickly found out that Cork is not quite our place, since we don't go party, and it's quite chaotic there, with many people from all around the country to go there just for the pub (not to mention we almost spend the night on the street since most hostels are full). The report is slowing us down too, we had to stay late into the night at the hostel just to write our report.

25 July 2010 - Ring of Kerry

We found out that there is a day tour around Ring of Kerry based in Cork, and we were happy. This is because due to many difficulties, we had made a lot of last minute changes to our plan (canceling places, originally including Ring of Kerry).

Charlie Chaplin visited Ring of Kerry too!!

The view Ring of Kerry is so famous about.

26 July 2010 - Doolin

Late in the morning, we depart for a long journey to Doolin, which serves as a base to visit the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands. The evening is not quite suitable for visiting the cliffs because it was very foggy, the visibility is less than 100m! So we stayed in the hostel for the rest of the day. The host there is friendly and helpful, though not our roommate... At around 8.30pm the host gave us a presentation of the Burrens(which is the whole area where Doolin is situated at). We finally completed our reports that night :D (actually I completed it two nights ago) Missed the Irish pub! Regrettable!!

28 July 2010 - Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher

We rented a bicycle and off we go to enjoy Insheer, one of the Aran Islands. Straight coming back from the island, we took a 1 hour break at the hostel before staring our 10km ride to Cliffs of Moher.

Inisheer: blue seas, quite town, and some derelicts.

Endless road to Cliffs of Moher.

Cliffs of Moher: the picture is unappealing, you have to be there to see it's dramatic scenery!

More to come..

Ireland Trip

22 July 2010 - Belfast

In the end, there is only one travel companion to 7 days trip to Ireland. We fly from Liverpool to Belfast, our first stop. We arrived early at the hostel at about 9am, only to find that we can only check in 10pm, and that caused us to miss the hostel's own tour to Giant's Causeway. Having no choice, we took bus there ourselves. Although we have only about 1 hour there, we had fun nevertheless, and the view is breathtaking.

Dunluce Castle near Giant's Causeway.

Giant's Causeway

At night, we went out for Belfast's night view. Too bad my camera is not good enough to take pictures at night..

Belfast at night.

23 July 2010 - Dublin

We depart for Dublin the next morning, and found that Mary Gibbons tour to Newgrange is not as good as they say. Apparently, somebody made a booking on another time and came today, which means there is no place for us, so we took another tour there, luckily, there was just enough empty seats for us!

About the place, there are three mega tombs, Knowth, Newgrange and Dowth. Sunlight will penetrate through these tombs to their center, lighting up the whole chamber. This period is specific for each of the tomb. For newgrange, it's morning of the Winter Solstice, evening of Autumn Equinox at Knowth, and evening of Winter Solstice at Dowth. We visited only Knowth and Newgrange, because Dowth is not accessible. In my opinion, Knowth is more interesting since it features a lunar calender, and it has two access passages.

Knowth

Newgrange

Sadly, we did not make it to visit Dublin's night view because we had to do report given by our lecturer :(

But hey, we manage to visit Guinness Warehouse which is what Dublin is all about ;)

More to come...