Giant's Causeway

For breakfast I had a cup of tea, a grilled tomato, mushrooms, a fried egg, and white and black pudding. Not to mention toast with creamy Irish butter and sweet black currant jam. Finally, a traditional Irish fry up!

I had black pudding the very first morning I was ever in Ireland. Tommy took my mom and I to a little restaurant where we had a full Irish breakfast. I knew what black pudding was, and I was curious to try it. After my first taste, I eagerly ate the whole thing. (And yes, I do know what's in it.)

Tiffany tried a taste of black pudding and white pudding, too. She didn't dislike it, but I don't think she really liked it, either. The black pudding was definitely drier than I remember it being. Perhaps if we had some better black pudding, she'd find it more palatable.

After breakfast, we took the coach back to Northern Ireland to visit the Giant's Causeway. But I first made sure that we got some pictures of the scenery outside in the hotel parking lot.


Triumph (I don't know what model though)

Jaguar E Type


After taking in some of the local automotive scenery, we stopped by at a round hill fort called Grianan Ailligh. The fort is estimated to be about 2000 years old, and before that was a prehistoric burial mound some 5000 years ago.





There's actually space between the inner and outer walls, with a low entryway to go inside. Victoria, the youngest of our group by about fifteen years, ventured a little ways inside. But it was pitch black, and very difficult to see anything. Later we learned that there was a cougar spotted in the area. I'm sure that the crawl space in the hill fort would have been a perfect hiding space for it.

We made one last stop before reaching the Causeway. We pulled over at the Bushmill Distillery, home to some fine Irish whiskey and the longest running legal distillery in the world. Unfortunately, our stop was only intended to be a half hour pit stop. And this was just after I had learned that people who take the tour of the distillery get free samples.

When we got off the coach at Bushmill's, it almost smelled like a bakery. Tiffany claimed that we could probably gain weight just by the smell alone. We found the loo (that's English for toilet) and then proceeded to the gift shop. Tiffany found a miniature decanter that I liked. I didn't want to buy it though, because I felt that we didn't have any room in the house for it. Tiffany disagreed, saying that we will have room eventually (such as when we buy a new house) and that we may not have a chance to buy such a decanter later. Of course she was right (and all of the women on the tour who've heard this story have said so) so we got it.

After shopping, I found the bar. I was curious about the whiskey, and I figured I'd buy myself a drink. I saw some other folks sitting around enjoying their whiskey at some nearby tables. I walked up to the bar and asked how Bushmill's compared to Jameson's, the only other Irish whiskey I've had the pleasure of imbibing.

I received in response a lengthy, educational and intelligent description of the process and materials that were involved in the making of the two whiskeys, highlighting the differences between the two and how the flavor is affected. There is no way I could repeat what was said--I had received a sudden and immense information dump on whiskey that I couldn't retain if I wanted to.

I then asked for a glass of the 10 year that the bartender had described for me, and I pulled out a 5 pound note as he got down a glass. He looked at me and then asked, "Do you have a tour token?" I told him that I hadn't gone on the tour, but I was more than willing to pay for my drink. He explained that the bar wasn't licensed to sell the whiskey, but the restaurant up the way could. He then poured me some whiskey anyway.

After many thanks and smiles, I took the glass to the table were Tiffany sat, inhaling the whiskey smell from the glass as I walked. I sat down and handed Tiffany the glass, and she took a whiff as well. "It smells good," she said, and drank a large sip from the glass. She smiled and returned the remaining whiskey to me. I took a large mouthful, and I let the flavor sit on the tongue before swallowing. The whiskey was delightfully smooth, and warmed my insides as it went down. I smiled back at Tiffany. "That's really good," I said.

We stopped back at the gift shop on our return to the coach. We bought some dark chocolate truffles made with Irish whiskey, orange marmalade made with Irish whiskey, and to further the trend, clove and apple jam, also made with Irish whiskey. We also picked up a little something for Tiffany's parents made of Irish whiskey (the thing we picked up, not her parents).

Finally, we left for the Giant's Causeway. The Giant's Causeway is a group of strange pillar-like shapes on the Irish shore of the North Atlantic. It was originally a bridge built by the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill so that he could challenge his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. Unfortunately for Fionn, it turned out that Scottish giants are bigger and meaner. So Fionn's wife disguise him as a baby. When Benandonner saw such an enormous baby, the Scottish giant assumed that Fionn would be a colossal giant indeed. He turned tail and fled back to Scotland, breaking the causeway as he ran so that Fionn could not follow him.

Or the Giant's Causeway was formed by the cooling and shrinking of molten basalt from volcanic eruptions 60 million years ago. If you believe the geologists over Fionn mac Cumhaill.

The Giant's Causeway was a part of the trip I was definitely looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. I will have to use pictures to convey the place, because both Tiffany and I were awestruck. We walked about 2.5 miles on the paths there, first taking the upper path and then climbing the stairs down to the lower path. I think I burned off the calories from my breakfast. Of course, after all that sweaty walking, some honeycomb ice cream was called for to cool off.












We returned to Clanree Hotel for dinner and our last night there. Tiffany had the fried plaice (a type of white fish) and I had the gammon (a large slice of ham, fit for Fionn mac Cumhaill himself) that was so big it almost covered the whole plate. Both were served with vegetables, mash (mashed potatoes), and fried potatoes. Because you can never have enough potatoes.