Day 11: Monday (6/17/2013)

Today we got up early, ate breakfast, and headed out.

Watch out for giants!

Our first stop: the Giant's Causeway.  This site gets a huge billing, and for the most part, it lives up to it.  The causeway is made up of amazing basalt column formations at the ocean's edge that you can scramble over as much as you want.  Definitely get here early, as this site is very tour bus-friendly and gets crammed to the gills very quickly.

After viewing the causeway, we went over to the old Bushmill's Distillary, the oldest distillery in Ireland.  These guys got their charter in 1608--but have been distilling long before that.

This is a great tour, really fun--and hot!  If you take this tour, dress in layers, as it's gotta be 90F in the still room.  We ended our time at Bushmills with drinking--and buying--whiskey.

From there, we stopped by Dunlace Castle, but didn't feel like paying the price to wander the smallish ruins amidst the tour bus crowds.  So, we took lots of pictures, and moved on.

At this point, we decided to take a break and have a quick nap, followed by a run.  I ran along the north Irish coast in the same gear I wore running along the Caribbean coast.  This planet is nuts.

Dinner was at our hotel's restaurant.  Alephi gave us each one free 4-course dinner (app, main, desert, tea) with our stay, so we took them up on it.  Not too bad, actually--read my review here.

Portrush at sunset.

Mary and I wandered the town afterward.  This walk reinforced for me the tired feeling Portrush has.  Have you ever walked a closed carnival ground in the winter when everything is overgrown, turned off, and unused?  Portrush felt like that.  The main street is lined with faded "Arcades" with slot machines for the elderly.  There are small carnivals on both sides of the town near the water, but everything was off and stowed.  Every other house on the primary residential street, Causeway, is boarded up or for sale.

Maybe in the past, Portrush was vibrant and alive... but now, it feels like its on life support, relying on a thin stream of tourists to keep its thready heartbeat going.