We obviously had to make a stop at Trinity College, which is absolutely beautiful! And massive. Sadly we were all so tired and out of it that day because with the time difference it was 8 a.m. when we flew into Dublin, so we just stayed up.
The famous library
The next day, after getting lots and lots of sleep, we went to see the Rock of Cashel, aka a super cool old castle!
I could just park myself on that lawn and stare at it for hours. Derrick, you would've LOVED all the incredible architecture on all these old buildings and castles.
So many gorgeous stone arches everywhere. I wish America had such incredibly old history and buildings!
This castle was so huge!
I miss seeing you every day, Heather. ='(
The graveyard behind the castle.
The weather in Ireland is so unpredictable. Just several minutes before we got to the Rock of Cashel it was dumping rain, then we get out of the car and there's sunshine and blue skies!
Daryl's mind just reeling as he studies every little detail. He was probably wishing for a few more signs to read. ;)
The grass was so green in some areas it almost hurt your eyes to look at it!
The wild Atlantic. =D And yes it was much colder than these 2 pictures let on.
Typical Irish countryside. SO green and beautiful.
Heather and I made our husbands listen to probably an unhealthy amount of Irish music with all our driving... but I think they secretly liked it. Maybe it just upsets them that they can't play the accordion.
Those hills in the background are part of a National Park called The Burren... a natural geographic phenomenon where water eats away at the rocks and causes these amazing rock formations and caves. Just miles and miles of this beautiful rocky terrain! I feel like this paragraph is making me sound really smart so maybe I should keep talking about it.
The natural lighting here was really cool, so we took pictures. Not that that was an important detail you guys wanted to know.
Heather and I swooping in for a dramatic picture... which usually ends up with us looking like goons. But at least we're in it together.
And now, da da da daaaa! The oh so famous Cliffs of Moher. We did pretty good at staying away from the touristy hot-spots just because none of us like crowds, but this was one attraction we obviously HAD to see. And it might have just been because of the time of year, but it wasn't even that busy!
And once again, it was supposed to rain that day, but it held off until we were leaving the cliffs! We were so fortunate to have such amazing weather on this trip. God obviously wanted us to go to Ireland. ;) haha
The wind was of course pretty intense. Thank God for hoods so that my hair doesn't look like a gnu's.
Our amazing little group! Love them so so much.
I still can't believe we got to go to Ireland, and got to go TOGETHER.
Excuse the little ghost circle on my leg... apparently I let my fairy out.
I can't even describe how much I miss seeing her every day!
I could be going all sappy right now because these pictures are bringing back so many memories... you're welcome for having so much self control and restraining myself.
One night we stayed in this amazing woman's home, (we got pretty much all our places on airbnb) and it was back in on this tiny road with just like a minute's walk to the ocean. I can't help thinking how this would be cluttered with houses in the U.S.
The kind woman even made a traditional Irish breakfast for us! It was delicious, except for the black (aka blood) pudding. Yes, uber picky Kelly even tried it and held it down with the help of lots and lots of water.
The view from the ocean... you can see several little cottages scattered here and there between all the rocks and stone fences.
After leaving the cottage we spent what seemed like the entire day driving, but we kept coming upon scenes like this.
So. Much. Green.
And this little road is pretty much how all their roads are unless it's a major highway.
I took this picture primarily because of all the stone fences running up, down and along the hills. I miss stone fences!
A huge plateau type thing that I wish so badly we would've had time to hike!
Another perfect hiking spot. Just fyi, they call hiking "hill walking." Even in the mountains. Like no, I will never call hiking in Glacier "hill walking" cause it doesn't nearly make me sound tough enough.
An insanely gorgeous area that we stumbled across. I could've spent all day here... you know with a lawn chair, a good book, a snack... (sound familiar mom?) ='D
There was even a beautiful old castle in the background. Seriously it was so amazing... everywhere you drive there's just these random ancient structures practically in people's back yards.
If you look closely you can see sheep behind us! And also me holding onto my hair trying to keep it from flapping into my face.
We may or may not have hiked through a farmer's field and up a steep hill to get these pictures.
Gah! I miss this so much!
The sheep happily trotting back down the hill.
We went to see the Dunluce Castle ruins, an ancient medieval castle. The oldest part of the castle was built in the 16th century! It was so fascinating. Also amazing how something that old can still be standing. It's crazy imagining how it looked back then, and just being able to stand on something that holds that much history.
How could they do all of this by hand?!
The view outside one of the castle windows. It's built right on the edge of a cliff.
There was pretty much always some sort of restoration construction going on at all of the castles. Apparently it takes years and years just to do tiny sections since it's such detailed work. And I'm guessing they just have to do it as they get the money.
Next we went to Giant's Causeway, which was another favorite!
All these hexagons are just the result of lava cooling a certain way. I'm not sure which is more fun to believe... that it happened naturally or that giants built it. I'm thinking giants.
This was definitely one of our favorite places.
These crazy tall columns looked like pipes on a massive pipe organ from far away!
The view from above Giant's Causeway. The hike up to the top and along the top was absolutely breathtaking, but due to certain ones of us (namely me) not having used the restroom in a really long time, the hike was done at a rather brisk pace. It's kinda hard to enjoy the view when your bladder is yelling at you.
So many sheep everywhere! Heather and I were constantly swooning.
We made a quick stop at the dark hedges, where all of the Game of Thrones fans were probably congregated.
From Belfast we took a ferry to Scotland... the sunrise was gorgeous!
We met some fellow Americans wanting their picture taken, so they returned the favor. =)
We had no idea what was going to be awaiting us in Scotland. The Southern half is mostly normal with not that much to look at besides some REALLY cool old towns, but then... the Highlands.
We were completely blown away. We didn't do that much research on Scotland since we weren't gonna spend much time there. I wish we would've!
Thankfully we were having a hard time finding a place to stay in the area we wanted, but we found one for pretty cheap way up north. So we decided to stay there and figured we'd have a somewhat interesting drive.
Yea 'somewhat interesting' is like the understatement of the century. We could have spent WEEKS in the Highlands.
To think we almost didn't even drive through this makes me want to cry. Heather and I are convinced we're going back to Scotland and we're spending a week in the Highlands. And hiking through all those mountains! Who knows... we might find some ancient Celt playing his bagpipes in a cave. Wow imagine how loud that would be.
So rugged and wild!
Oh wait that previous caption was meant for this picture.
We thought Ireland was windy... then we came to Scotland. Just blew us away. (that was for you, Tonia)
All this massiveness made us feel (and look) incredibly small.
The house we stayed at was super close to Loch Ness. This is at the very spot where two seemingly crazy females filmed the hit "Nessie Sighting" movie. Although I would obviously NEVER want to associate myself with a ridiculous movie like that, I must say the other actress in the film bore a striking resemblance to Heather. Especially when she sniffed the rock.
The guys went to tour a whiskey distillery so us girls took our chance to hike a little. Needless to say, their hiking is a tad different in Scotland than here. I don't think they believe in trails. Heather and I aimlessly wandered through the hills like sheep, until we decided we really couldn't find the trail, and went back down to the road.
We had a looooong day of driving down through Eastern Scotland and into the northern part of England. If we enjoyed large cities, we probably would've enjoyed that drive more. But we don't, so we didn't. The next morning we had a short drive to the fort along Hadrian's Wall, which is a wall the Romans built in 122 AD (what were they doing all the way in England?!) that spreads across England to keep out the Gaelic barbarians.
It was the craziest feeling walking on and around this... I think we were often speechless. What words can even describe something this ancient?
Sadly I failed to get a picture of the actual wall. Good one Kelly. I'm pretty sure you can see it faintly in the distance on the right of this panoramic.
Letting our inner Roman out. Either that or barbarians who just overtook the fort.
Heather took her part a little too seriously.
The lush green grass around these dilapidating ruins was so beautiful.
Our last stop before we took the ferry back to Dublin to fly home was this beautiful, ginormous castle in northern Wales called Conwy Castle. It was built by Edward I sometime between 1283 and 1289.
We were so sad because we didn't have enough time to even go inside the castle because we needed to head over to the ferry.
We were all really sad to be leaving... (us girls more so than the guys) although we knew it would be good to be back in America. America is always home, and it's where you feel comfortable. But now that we're home all we want to do is go back!
If you made it through this post, good job. You just scrolled through 122 pictures. Might want to give your fingers a break or soak them in epsom salt water. As always, I love and miss you all so much, and can't wait to see you soon-ish!
