L Rizzy's Adventures: Ireland and Northern Ireland: L Rizzy's 11th and 12th Countries

Thankfully our flight to Dublin was not too bad thanks to a well behaved (and well entertained) little one. Unfortunately, though, for me and those around me, I quickly became quite sick with a nasty headache and sore throat making me insufferable. Thankfully everything went according to schedule and when we arrived at the hotel near the airport, Grandmother Molly was waiting to greet us. This served many purposes. It allowed me to take a break and rest in the room while L Mama, Molly and L Rizzy got some dinner. It also gave L Mama a much needed break from me. We watched Ohio State on the computer then all got some rest.

In the morning I collected our rental car and we were on our way north. We stopped at Newgrange which is a prehistoric monument that was a passage tomb mound. This thing was built before Stonehenge, before the Pyramids, before McDonalds. We're talking 3200 BC ladies and gents. That's 5 grand years ago. What made it spectacular, though, is the attention to detail and the amazing structural integrity- the inner chamber has been water tight for 5 millennia. Also, it is perfectly aligned so that during the winter solstice the inner chamber is flooded with light for about 15 minutes per day for five days. Pretty amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newgrange

After this visit we continued north and on this track we drove though Northern Ireland pushing L Rizzy's country count to 12.

We arrived at Harvey's Point Hotel near Donegal Town. This hotel is amazing. Our "room" was more like an apartment and in actuality was bigger than the flat we lived in for a year in Germany (81 meters squared is greater than 77 meters squared). We had some amazing room service in Grandmother Molly's room and all turned in early after a long day of driving and walking. This morning we had a spectacular breakfast including made to order omelets, carved ham, amazing fruit spread, and delicious fresh squeezed juices. After a midday rain storm which afforded us the chance to nap some, we got into the car and drove west to Donegal town where we saw the Donegal Castle (should be renamed Donegal Craple compared to Stirling, Edinburgh, and Dunnottar). I didn't even post the pictures below because my camera purposely deleted them for me. After this we headed further west to the Slieve League Cliffs. While not as famous as the Cliffs of Moher, these cliffs are in fact nearly three times as high reaching to 600 meters. We hiked up the long path all the way to the look out point (much, much farther than we had bargained for) and enjoyed the views. L Rizzy enjoyed all the sheep and babbling brooks along the way. Thankfully only L Rizzy and I slipped (might have been pushed) on the wet grass and ended up with huge grass stains on our jeans. The scenery was breathtaking.

We drove back to the hotel and enjoyed the perfect room service again. Tomorrow we will drive back to Dublin to stay the night downtown. We are looking forward to having dinner in Dublin at a "Gallagher" restaurant and enjoying two, chree, four...teen Guinness drafts.