We’d no sooner got ourselves unpacked from our brief jaunt to Vila do Conde then it was time to pack ourselves right back up for another journey. The last getaway was a near-spontaneous escape from the heat, but we’d been planning this one for quite some time. We’ve told family and friends back in the States that if they make it across the Atlantic we’d do our best to close the gap if they were up for a visit. We were happily being taken up on our offer by Lisa’s sister and her family, who were taking a rare vacation overseas to visit Ireland. Us being us, we plotted a trip that ended with our rendezvous in Dublin and then worked back to include not one, but TWO bucket list items that we could finally check off.

So off we popped on a short flight to Dublin, although for now this was just a waypoint. Directly from the airport we hopped onto a commuter bus that would drop us in downtown Belfast. (Unlike the last time we pulled this maneuver, we did not start at 1AM nor did we arrive in Belfast at 4AM. Go us.) Arriving while the sun was still up, we had no difficulty navigating to the lovely Fitzwilliam Hotel; three cheers for flash sales on booking.com.

It was a wee bit surreal as it turns out that the Open was happening. (Us Americans would call it the British Open, the oldest golf tournament in the world, held over four days.) The City was festooned with golf-related events and experiences, and waiting for us in our hotel room were little party favor / welcome gifts – golf balls made out of white chocolate. Sure! After checking out the room and unpacking a bit, we headed out to dinner at Mourne Seafood Bar. Total yum! It’s a great place for oysters in particular and the mussels were excellently garlic-y and tender. (We did think the dough on the lobster gyoza was a bit too thick.) We slept very well.

You may remember that we enjoyed our visit here in 2022, we ran into . . . difficulty . . . seeing the Giant’s Causeway. If you’re an OG Sasha’s Doghouse fan you may even recall similar difficulties on our honeymoon in 2012. This time we were by gosh and by gum going to succeed! Making it completely easy (and not our usual style) we booked with PaddyWagon Tours for a day trip that would leave all of the planning in the hands of locals. We scored quick breakfast and then let them drive us all around for a day.

We started with the Dark Hedges, which have been made famous by the Game of Thrones TV show, and which we found underwhelming. No matter how atmospheric and cinematic the location may have been on the show, when its swarmed with people and vehicles it’s … just a bunch of trees. Instead, we took this picture about 100 meters away from the overrun hedges. It may not be fancy or featured on the television, but a) it’s prettier in our opinion, and b) we had it all to ourselves.

Much more interesting was the dragon door at a nearby Inn carved from the wood of fallen trees in the Hedges, which has apparently suffered significant losses from immense tourist traffic. There are a few of these doors scattered around the world and you can even get stamps in a little passport thingy to show when you’ve completed your collection. Sorry, there’s probably more lore here to unwind but as you’ve probably gathered by now neither of us are particular fans of the show.

From there we went on to Dunluce Castle, a glorious ruin set on the edge of a basalt outcropping. The views are lovely and it was wonderfully scenic. John had a moment of cognitive dissonance as we grappled with the fact that the vibe was of an incredibly ancient site but the castle actually only dated back to like the 1700s. That’s what being on the Irish coast will do to a place; eek. He got over it and enjoyed the visit immensely.

And, finally, we arrived at Giant’s Causeway! The natural element is interesting and worth seeing, but not during the summer when the rocks are covered with people. Frustratingly, the Visitor’s Center is an expensive 15 pounds and is the easy way to get to a cafe and souvenir shop. However, there is no need to pay the fee, you can just walk through a tunnel (that looks like the way to a car park) and then down about a mile to the rocks themselves. However, there is also a tram for a small fee that takes you one, or both ways. (Good idea, especially on the return trip uphill.) By the by, this was our main gripe with the Paddywagon tour. While an incredibly close reading of the text probably reveals that they never said boo about the visitor center, they go to great lengths to sell you on the idea you were being ushered along to all of the spots. (We didn’t pay an entrance fee at Dunluce, for example.) At the Causeway, however, we pulled up along the curb just outside the place and were dropped off with instructions to meet back there in am hour and a half or so. “Nah, don’t worry about the Visitor Center, who needs to be bothered with that nonsense?” Us. We need to be bothered with the nonsense. Sigh.

It wasn’t actually the end of the tour, as we stopped for lunch at the “Fullerton Arms” which was a huge disappointment. We didn’t get there until after 2pm — so bring snacks to tide you through the many hours between pickup and lunch. The food was bland and very “industrial”. When they drop you off at the Causeway you peruse a terse menu and then you choose fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, ceasar salad, and option four whatever the heck that was, which would then be waiting for you at the inn. The food was “meh” and also not at all cheap, which is particularly irritating when it was not discussed ahead of time and there were no other options presented. It wasn’t terrible, just managed and presented badly which just got us off on the wrong foot. All that being said, the tour accomplished what we wanted it to. It was back to Belfast for us, for a quiet night before catching the Steam Packet the next day? What the heck is a Steam Packet? Tune in next time!

Thrills! Chills! Spills! … Honestly, what kind of trip would that be for two people in their 50s visiting ancient burial sites? The new Jumanji sequel? No, we had your usual placid day of traveling to and seeing interesting stuff, right up until things took a turn, and even then it was mostly annoying. But before the turn, we had a lovely day. We picked up a rental car at the airport (automatic, naturally – we have “some” experience with manual transmissions but combining the stick shift with everything being on the opposite side just seemed like one obstacle more than is necessary. Besides, they offer automatics, why not take advantage?) In any case, we made sure to have total coverage in place despite the cost and hit the- what? Why total coverage? Well.

I’m pretty sure we’ve written about this before, but it was back when this blog was called Sasha’s Doghouse and it had a very different flavor. (More meandering, if you can imagine.) Lisa was doing her research preparing for our first trip to Ireland, and she came across consistent advice on a single topic. She sent me some relevant links and I looked into it as well. What she found was: the Irish are consistently extortionate (good word honey, thanks!) in one way: rental car damage assessments. I know I know, generalizing about groups of people is wrong, but is a stereotype a stereotype if it’s 100% true all of the time, right? :p We found numerous reports in trust-worthy locations of truly awful experiences with rental car returns in Ireland. Invisible damage, over-charging, you name it. On that first trip we got the total coverage and were so glad for it after two weeks careening down one-lane tracks with stone walls on either side. I can still remember the disappointment on the face of the employee as they came out of the office to check us in and then noticed the coverage clause on our contract. And so, with nary a consideration given we upped the coverage on this car. In any other situation we are perfectly comfortable with the typical coverage granted from your credit card. Ireland? Buy the coverage.

Car sorted, we oriented north and made for the countryside. The agenda for the day was to start with a couple of bronze age (give or take an era) stone sites (basically our favorite thing to do ever). First up was, honestly, what may be my all time favorite; certainly top two or three: The Holestone in Doagh. The Holestone is an outcropping of rock in otherwise rolling fields – the topography has surely changed over the millennia but this would have stood out against the terrain for most of that. Very rough steps let you ascend to the top of it, where a “holestone” has been placed. It’s a pillar into which (science tells us) a hole was deliberately bored. The original purpose is lost to time; I note that it is not particularly aligned, for example the sun at a solstice or equinox does not pass through it. What we really found interesting was that a historian in the early 1800s noted that there was “already a well-established tradition” of lovers ascending the stone, whence the female (sorry, the times are the times) would place her hand through the stone. Her partner would then clasp her hand and they would then pledge themselves to each other. Folklore being what it is, if this is “well-established” in the 1800s there’s no reason not to suspect that this sacred place has existed all this time for a very similar purpose. It is also, one observes, a wide enough plateau, and secluded enough, that such a ritual could be consummated with ease. Indeed, the stones are currently covered in foliage of many types and an area one might see as a bower existed to one side. Good for the Irish, I say.

By the by, getting to the Holestone is reminiscent of many sites we’ve been to over the years. The local populace has respect for these traditional sites but they don’t fetishize them. The Holestone has some simple signage, and it’s even marked on the road, but it is in the middle of what is now privately-owned pasture. So, we parked the car on the side of the road (no car park, natch) and wandered up and down until we found the gate in the fence that didn’t have a padlock on it. The gate was a big, 10-foot wide livestock fence, not some pretty entranceway. Once in the field, you are navigating cow patties, and not new ones that hadn’t been attended to – it’s clear that they never are, and it’s walker beware. There’s also no marked path per se, just “look, the big rocks are in that direction.” None of this is bad/wrong in our opinion, it’s just interesting. (We saw a ring of stones on our last trip that was in no way sign posted. Local lore said they existed, we read about them somehow, and followed old-fashioned (non-googled) directions – e.g. turn left at the church, then right at the big tree – to find it.) Anyway, we love and highly recommend going to see these sites, but it’s definitely a special kind of tourism. Upside: there’s never a crowd.

From Doagh, we made our way to Dunloy, home of Dooey’s Cairn. “Dooey”, if you’re wondering, is not the name of an ancient clan or even an archaeologist. In contrast to the Holestone’s situation, the site of this court tomb was donated to the national trust for such things, and was named after the family who generously did so. Still, even at these donated sites they tend to be the land it’s on plus a wee stretch for public access; we were surrounded by cows as we examined the place. In any case, Dooey’s Cairn is actual a “court tomb” which was a community grave site – there’s actually a subterranean portion where cremated remains would be taken, these stones are (as far as I know, I’m still a novice at this stuff) more ceremonial / there to mark the site than they are functional. That said, in the “court” (think courtyard) there are two stones in particular that mark the entrance to the tomb – if you had a shovel and permission that’s where you’d start to dig if you wanted to see what was there. Those things were acquired many years ago in this case and the archaeology has been completed, but the site was still basically intact and so it was re-interred. I’m a broken record if you’ve been reading along for awhile, but it will always be true that what I most get out of these places is that ~6000 years ago humans still had a sense of community and belonging enough to do things like have their version of a cemetery.

By now we were hungry, so we made for one of the numerous restaurants that Lisa turns up in her research; in this case it was Nadine’s Diner. Nadine’s is the best of an American diner bolted onto friendly Irish people and some distinctive food. I had the best hamburger since we left the states (Braga has many proprietors, but they all want to put their own spin on things… JUST MAKE A BURGER) and Lisa had a more traditional small fry up. It was yummy and an interesting change of pace from both Portuguese cafes and Irish pubs. 10/10 would kill my gall bladder again.

This, alas, is where the day began to take a turn. First of all, we got to our next stop at Kinbane Castle, which was both underwhelming and a little more difficult to reach than we were willing to spend on such a little bit of nothing. (The travel privilege is starting to show – “that’s the castle?? we’ve seen better…” but still… we had.) On the other hand, if I’d known how the rest of the day was going to turn out I probably would have pushed harder to spend time here. Alas. Our next stop was going to be at Giant’s Causeway. OOoooohhh neat, right?

So, here’s the thing. We arrived in Northern Ireland for what has been, for them, balmy weather. Sunny, mid 20s (high 70s), just gorgeous. We loved it too for the opposite reason – it’s been in the 30s for a long while in Braga now, so we were enjoying the coolth. Heading out to the countryside, we completely forgot that this is the kind of weather that would draw the Irish out to do all the fun family things that are a drag in the dreary time. Combine that with it being a Saturday (we honestly do lose track of what day it is now…) and the bigger tourist attractions were crrrrraaaaaawwwwwwling with local vacationers. Which is right and natural, of course, but also a total pain in the ass. There’s a visitor center controlling the best access to the Causeway, but passes were completely sold out. Other access points unsurprisingly have car parks grown up in front of them, and all of those were full. Almost unbelievably we had to give Giants Causeway a pass; and thus the itinerary for our next trip to Ireland begins to coalesce. Please note that this is the second time we’ve given Giant’s Causeway a pass.

Sadly, this same sequence repeated itself at the other two places we’d plan to visit that day, Lissanduff Earthworks and Dunluce Castle, and other than a glimpse of the castle as we drove by they were utter failures. Naturally the frustration level was also rising, and we decided to punt on one or two other minor attractions and make for Derry. We made it to our hotel, Da Vinci’s, and settled in… except for the final indignity. Our room did not have air conditioning. Like, at all, there’s no vents or anything. Well, ok, it has these nice big windows… which open about 3 inches. AND, while we can only speculate it feels like a pretty good guess, the hotel laundry is located in the room next door. It’s not noisy, but it’s warm. AND (AND) not only is the hotel completely booked so is the entire city. It’s a thoroughly unpleasant though somewhat manageable situation, and the only reason we didn’t move is that there were no rooms to go to. We’ll get into some Derry history tomorrow, but a huge “celebration” was going on in town this weekend and between that and the “counter celebrations” (my term) the town was bursting with visitors. It was this or nothing. So, we opened the windows as best we could, propped our room door open as wide as it could go (because who doesn’t want to get to know their neighbors in a hotel?) and created the best cross-breeze we could. All in all, the day was a mixed bag, but honestly writing this has been a little therapeutic, going over how great the first half of it was. So thank you all for that, and we’ll talk about a mood recovery day next time. Could that be another cliffhanger? Who is this madman?

(Actually, John, these haven’t really been cliffhangers. Even “teaser” would be generous but it would at least be closer. Yeah yeah. . . )