Up and at ’em today. We finished packing bags and took to the interstate and across the state line into Georgia and then on to the airport in Atlanta.
I neglected to remove my wallet from my pocket at security — which is pretty standard for me. This alarmed the helpful blue shirt, so he ran it through the X-ray after pronouncing it a big wallet. It was fine, because there’s nothing in my wallet that frightens anyone except the absence of money.
He brought back my wallet and I shared my relief that he’d pronounced it safe for a representative democracy. He asked if he I was a writer, because I was sarcastic and had a beard and “writers don’t care about their facial hair.”
That’s profiling, sir.
So I shaved tonight.
Here are some of the clouds from our flight:
We are officially health nuts. The first thing we did when we got to D.C. was go for a jog. Ran by this place:
I was offering people a dollar if they’d just go up to the police and say “Hey, that sure is nice. Who lives there?”
We ran 3.6 miles and it all felt good, which means it felt weird because there is no way that should feel good. But it did.
Jogging wasn’t supposed to be the first thing we did. We had scheduled a Segway tour of the capitol, but our plane was delayed. All three cities involved — where our plan was coming from, where we were departing from and where we were arriving, were all simultaneously socked in. That pushed us back several hours.
And so we did our bit of exercise, got cleaned up and hit Bangkok Thai, close to our hotel. Got a cookie from the CVS surrounded by loud, profane, angry beggars — ahh, D.C. — and then back to the room to iron clothes for tomorrow.
The most appropriate sign for the day, and it was a subdued one. All of this that you are about to see is stunningly gorgeous. And we’d ruin it with fences in the United States.
The Cliffs of Moher are on the edge of the Burren (meaning “Great Rock”) region in County Clare.
They top out at 702 feet above the Atlantic here at O’Brien’s Tower and receive almost one million visitors a year.
The cliffs take their name from an old fort called Moher that once stood on Hag’s Head, to the south. It was demolished in 1808 and the present tower near that site was a lookout tower during the Napoleonic wars. O’Brien’s Tower? It was built in 1835 to impress girls. Some things never change. Also, how hard to impress were 19th century women? Look at the view!
Thousands and thousands of birds live in the cliffs — that rock is a popular spot — and they are said to come from more than 20 species, like Atlantic Puffins, hawks, ravens and more.
This is the most popular tourist site in Ireland. Again, not hard to see why.
They were featured in the Potter films …
… and most importantly in The Princess Bride. The Cliffs of Insanity!
What happens when one person makes a nice face and one person makes the Facebook duck face:
Can anyone say Christmas card?
The sun was just about to set on us and The Yankee said the Cliffs were the place to be. She is so often right.
The Burren is a whole lot of limestone. They can just pull up slabs of it and stack it into a vertical fence. O’Brien had these particular ones built in the 19th century and they’ve been reinstalled today. They are holding out the growth for the pedestrian path. You look over those rocks and there are a few feet of wildflowers — more on those in a moment — and then it all just falls into the ocean.
They’ve traveled over most of the southern half of Ireland now and they still like each other. I think they might make it.
Because it is limestone, and because of the water, there are a lot of caves in the local cliffs. Perhaps that is one down there. This is a big area for cavers and climbers, though we didn’t see any today.
You don’t see them all here, but I did learn today that the Burren region — which ranges for about 250 kilometers — is exotically varied in its flora. You can see arctic, Mediterranean and alpine plants all close by one another here. They all have to meet up somewhere, one supposes.
I bet she got a good picture. If she didn’t, I did.
That’s the path on the top of the cliff, by the way. There’s nothing preventing you from falling to the ocean below. They say that a strong gust of wind can do the job if you are standing too close to the edge. I am only a tiny bit skeptical of that.
If you can stop looking at the rock and the birds below you can see the Aran islands off in the distance …
If you continued looking south you might notice an area of disturbed water. Legend has it that this is the location of Kilstiffen. The ancient city sank when its chieftain, in battle, lost a golden key that opened the castle. The story goes that the city will not be restored until the key is recovered from its unknown location. Local storytellers will say the city’s golden-roofed palaces and churches can sometimes be seen shining below the surface. Once in every seven years it rises above the waves. Those who catch a glimpse of this city will die before it appears again. Spooooky.
There’s a reef nearby that features submerged forests and bogs. There was an earthquake and tsunami at the turn of the 9th century, and that might help play into that legend.
Enjoying watching the sun fall into the ocean.
Just two weeks ago local officials opened their new 12-kilometer Cliffs of Moher Coastal Walk, which boasts some incredible scenery. It takes walkers from Hags Head outside Liscannor Village, over these beautiful cliffs and down into the village of Doolin, where we are staying tonight.
You read the signs telling you about the trail — “changes suddenly to a remote, challenging and demanding trail, with no barriers, handrails or seward fencing. Trail features include an exposed cliff-top path, steep ascents and descents, and narrow/steep flagstone steps. The trail may be rough and uneven in places with loose gravel and stone.” — and you realize the difference in American lawyers and Irish lawyers.
The little segment of it that we walked, here at the high point, featured this fun little staircase:
We had such a great time here. There are so many pictures, the ones above, more in the video below, and just a perfect evening with glorious weather.
I sent this little video home from the cliffs. You may enjoy it as well.
More playing around with video at the cliffs:
This one has many more pictures than you just scrolled through, stuff I shot between Dingle and Doolin on the day’s ride. The music is more of the local sound we heard in Dingle town.
Tomorrow we’re going to take a ferry to one of the Aran Islands, and then we’re going to see these same cliffs from sea level. Can’t wait.
Friends, please take this advice. If you have the opportunity to rent a car and drive out of London: Don’t.
Instead, find an Underground stop on the way out of town in the direction you want to go. Find a car rental place at that stop. Take that train and rent from there. And you are welcome.
It isn’t about driving on the left side of the road, which The Yankee did very well:
But that city wasn’t made for you. It was made for people on bicycles with a death wish. And cabbies. Who drink. And not your GPS. Just don’t.
Anyway, we rented a car, we got lost. We got lost while lost. The GPS had no idea. We drove about five miles in almost two hours. We finally made our way out of town in one of those mornings where nothing went right. (And this was the day we chose to rent a car!) Once you get out of London everything is fine. Hence my advice above. And so we drove about two hours to Dover.
No one in Dover knows where anything is. So that’s an adventure unto itself. Also, our GPS did not know.
We were going to take a tour on the water, but the guy that gives the tours was MIA. And also not answering his phone.
There is one other game in town, a speedboat game. So we donned splash suits and climbed into a Zodiac and bounced our way out to the cliffs. They look like this. (There is more writing below.)
Also, here is a panorama of the Dover castle above it all. As always, click to embiggen.
In this next picture, do you see that line that goes from the top of the cliff all the way to the shore? The cliffs are made of a chalk, and thus are soft. The locals, our guide told us, would often hoist up items from shipwrecks (or from smuggling) from the top of the cliffs. The ropes carved their way into the cliffs. In 1910 the Preussen, the largest ship of its kind in the world, found her fate on these shores. She was carrying pianos. The story goes that they all went into locals’ homes, via rope lines like these:
See the holes in the cliff face below? The British dug those out and mounted lights in there during World War II. Our guide told us that Dover never really recovered from the war economically, but not because of those lights. They were afraid of invasion from across the channel — France is only 26 miles away — and before radar they were lighting up ships at night.
This, we were told, is party of the area that always shows up in films:
This is one of the lighthouse markers that sits on top of the barrier wall at the harbor. These days fishermen pay good money to spend days or weeks on end out there, fishing and living in dank conditions. They made it sound miserable.
This is the old Customs Watch House, designed by architect Arthur Beresford Pite and built 1909-1911.
We ordered lunch from Sue, who works out of a truck. And her seafood is fresh.
Not sure what this is about, though:
But the seagulls approve.
The place we did not eat, but I wanted too. I’ve always wanted to try a burguer. But not a Donner.
Woke up in Bermuda this morning. We ran a quick 5K on the cruise ship’s track. Nice to do it without wind and all of those people standing around. This was the view from there of King’s Wharf:
Did you scroll around inside that image? It is interactive. Shot that on my iPhone, using an app called Photosynth. Works pretty well. I believe that is the best one of the few I’ve made so far.
In the afternoon we went here, Devil’s Island, for an easy snorkeling excursion. Click to embiggen:
We recently acquired a GoPro camera from my thoughtful in-laws. My father-in-law thought we could make nice videos in all of our athletic adventures. Which means now you’ll have to hear me pant on my bike, I guess.
We tried it for the first time while we were in the water today. The Yankee shot all the good parts. The rest were probably mine:
Oh, by the way, here’s our cruise ship, the Celebrity Summit:
The Yankee, talking with new friends. The wife is in a doctoral program and had just finished a class in entrepreneurial media, so we had that to bond over. Her husband had lived in Auburn, so we had that. Turns out he also went to high school with some of our other friends we’d made on the ship. In New Jersey. Even the big world is a small world:
This is Jordan Peterson, who is playing piano on the cruise. He’s an actor and musician.
And he’s good. I’ll have to grab a video of him soon.
Because it is June, and because I make up the rules around here, I’ve decided that this will be a week of older pictures. Most of these are on my phone. Some of them have been in this space or elsewhere on the site or in some of the regular social media places before. So they might be old to you — and bless you for still visiting — or they might be brand new.
Enjoy.
This is perhaps my favorite little bridge to ride my bicycle over. I’ve been fortunate to pedal over great big overpasses that cross state lines over brackish waterways and across little bumpy things that just get cars over glorified streams. But this one, all ancient and rickety from the looks of things, carries you over a railroad track.
It is surprisingly sturdy, I’ve watched cars and trucks go over it, but the first time I found it, on the backside of town and the backside of everything I normally ride, I went back and forth over it three times, just to listen to the sounds my bike made on it.
