Giant's Causeway

To see Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, we took trains back to Dublin and then north to Portrush.  The trains in Ireland radiate out from Dublin, so you have to go back through Dublin to go northward.  There are buses but they take just as long as the trains and would have cost us money.  The trains were covered by our Eurail pass.

Portrush is a popular beach getaway town, so we spent a little time on the beach our first evening:

We also saw this huge cruise ship with sails - pretty crazy!

The next day, we went to Giant's Causeway.  The hexagonal rocks are neat!

It was hard to get pictures without other tourists - there were many:

After some time at this very touristy area, we started walking along a path along the edge of the cliff... and just kept going.  We walked 4.8 miles to the next bus stop, realized the next bus wasn't for an hour, and walked the 4.8 miles back.  It was a beautiful walk:

Paul claimed the cliff (I think he's really gotten confused about Carcassonne)

We brought a small picnic lunch and ate it while enjoying the beautiful view:

We were walking along farmland, and these cows were nice enough to pose for a picture:

 The sky cleared up a bit when we were just about finished with our walk:

I continued to try to conquer my fear of heights by standing far out on a promontory:

Okay, okay, to get out to the last little bit (which isn't actually represented in this photo), I had to put my hands on either side of my eyes like blinders for a horse.  But I made it, dangit!

And because I can't help myself, just one more photo (we took a bazillion, it's so hard to choose!)

And finally, on our way back to Portrush, we stopped by the very picturesque Dunluce castle:

Cliffs of Moher

After Killarney, we took the train to Ennis to see the Cliffs of Moher.  It was a busy day.  We caught a train to Mallow then another to Limerick, then finally to Ennis.  Next, we hurried to our hostel to drop off our bags before returning to the train station to catch a 50 minute bus to the Cliffs of Moher.  We had a little under 3 hours at the Cliffs before the final bus back.

The Cliffs are pretty impressive:

  

Also, we liked this sign (to throw in a little CSI: Creative Sign Interpretation)

No walking on fire while admiring birds!

Ireland has been so dry for quite a while that this is the result (our shoes are normally black):

This was great for us because the weather was truly amazing.  How often do people get a clear blue sky at the Cliffs of Moher?  Not very often.  It was actually too hot - probably 85 or so - with no shade in sight.  We suffered through it, though.  :)

Viareggio

This post is for my grandpa, who was stationed in Viareggio during WWII.  He had told me about Viareggio before we left for our trip, but it wasn't really on our itinerary.  Then, I called him from Italy using Google Voice, and he said we should go there.  So we did.

Our main goal for Viareggio was to try to find things that were there when my grandpa was.  We found a church that had a plaque indicating that it was built long before then:

And this shop/restaurant along a road near the beach:

This pier may have been around as well:

It says "Viareggio in te son nato in te spero morire"

Other than that, we mainly checked out the beach.  I don't know what it was like when my grandpa was there, but Viareggio is definitely a resort town now.  The huge beach is lined with reserved areas to which the many hotels have staked their claims:

And finally, a leisurely walk on the beach:

A Roller Coaster Vineyard Ride

The Cinque Terre is well-known for its wonderful hiking paths between the five cities.  However, when we attempted to take one of the paths from Manarola, we discovered it was closed.  After locating the information office, we were informed that only one of the sections was open - between Vernazza and Monterosso.

Trains run frequently between the cities, and our Eurail pass lets us just hop on, so we caught the train to Vernazza and found the trail.  It turns out that this is the most strenuous of the paths - by a lot.  Some of the others are nice paved level paths along the water, which is what I had in mind.  This path, however, was not.  Instead of a leisurely stroll, we got quite the workout.  However, there were some great photo opportunities.

Me among the grapevines. (this is at the very beginning of the trek, before we knew what we were in for):

The city of Vernazza (I love the colorful umbrellas):

The ocean - so lovely!

And finally, a view of the rollercoaster vineyard ride:

These tracks were everywhere on the hills in the Cinque Terre.  We didn't see any actively in use, but a picture of what the vehicle that uses this track would look like can be found here.  Pretty neat!

Beautiful Vistas in Manarola

We spent 2.5 days in Manarola, a city in Italy's Cinque Terre.  On one of those days, we day-tripped to other locations - more on that in future posts.

In Manarola, we had a sea view room:

On our first evening, we went for a little walk.  Which turned out not to be so little after all.  Hiking in unfamiliar locations can wind up taking longer than you intend because you find yourself saying "but I'm sure there's a great view (or some other great thing) just around that bend!"  This was one of those walks.  Here's one view:

And another one - taken when we were happily bouncing back down the hill:

And another view - of the town of Manarola:

Paul also took a great panorama with his phone:

After a delicious and well-deserved dinner of pesto lasagna (seriously must make this one at home!) and lobster spaghetti, we enjoyed the view of the sea at night:

Paul also got a good shot of the town:

A Day of Beach and Rest

On Sunday, Paul and I took a break and just wandered around.  We went on a nice walk:

to a beach, where we both put our feet in:

Then I made sure to get a good picture of the 999 stairs I climbed up and down - hopefully, you can spot them along the cliff:

And finally, a lovely view of the Old Town of Nafplio from the pier: