Di Ireland

Final day of the trip - and what a wonderful ending. My lovely hotel is about a 20 minute walk to the Dublin Zoo, with a charming Victorian Tea Cottage along the way. Both are located in Phoenix Park, a huge complex of sporting fields, gardens, walkways, and the zoo. They claim that it is twice the size of Central Park in New York, but not how it relates to Lincoln or Grant Parks in Chicago. Whatever the case, it is pretty vast. I started the day with scone and tea at the Tea Cottage, then went to the zoo. When it comes to zoos, I feel pretty spoiled and a bit jaded after growing up with Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos. I was impressed with the Dublin Zoo. It is an old zoo - the ... read more

Today I went to view the Cliffs of Moher from the top. This is a place of wild majesty. The cliffs are the highest in Europe, towering over the water - dropping dramatically into the sea. This has been a popular attraction for a long time, and one that has been dangerous (even deadly) to those whose sense of adventure outruns their common sense. It is a very long way down if you fall. The site has been developed into one that manages huge numbers of tourists (the Cliffs of Moher is on almost every west country bus tour itinerary) with efficiency, safety, and a sense of respect for the location itself. There are broad, stone-paved walkways with an barrier wall that keeps tourists securely from the ledge without limiting the views of the cliffs. (Of ... read more

Most guides list the Dingle Peninsula among the 10 most beautiful places on earth. It is smaller than the neighboring Ring of Kerry, and has less developed roads. There are very few tour buses on the Dingle Peninsula, and areas where none would dare to venture. Armed with confidence from my drive around the Ring of Kerry, I ventured onto the Dingle Peninsula. Initially, the roads were good - good meaning that there were two lanes wide enough to warrant a painted line down the middle. This went on for a while, then the dividing line disappeared as the road narrowed and it became necessary to use caution negotiating past oncoming traffic. In time, at points, the road narrowed to a single lane - but the traffic remained two-way. Where it got insanely narrow, there were ... read more

In researching for this trip, I learned about a World Heritage Site called Newgrange, located roughly half way between Dublin and Dundalk. It is a man-made mound with an inner chamber that pre-dates the Pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge in England. I thought that it was worth a visit. Wow! The visit experience could have justified the entire trip. I had read that tours can fill up for the day during the summer, so I headed over to the site first thing this morning. You can't go directly there, but have to start at a visitor center. At the center a receptionist asked if I wanted BOTH the Newgrange and Knowth tours - obviously I had not researched this place carefully enough. I took both. We started at Knowth, which was built after Newgrange, but is ... read more