Gene and Jan's Long Trip Too

The Viking Sun docked in Belfast beside the shipyard that built the Titanic.  It is now in bankruptcy, having built their last ship in 2006.  Our excursion for the day was to the Giant's Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  Jan remained on-board the ship with a bad chest cold. Along the way we passed Dunluce Castle built around 1500 by the  MacQuillan family and later  seized by the ambitious MacDonnell clan in the 1550s .   It was a busy day in the area as motor scooter caravans and walkers raised money and awareness for prostate cancer. Upon reaching the Giant's Causeway Visitor's Center, we learned that reaching the site required a 1-mile hike downhill (uphill for the return).  Finally we reached the majestic and mysterious Giant's Causeway, an aggregation of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns--the result of an ancient volcano eruption.   The columns...

Wednesday we arrived in Dublin.  The weather was blustery and quite chilly as we began a 4-hour walking tour of the historic part of the city.   In Merrion Square, a park adjacent to the childhood home of Oscar Wilde, We viewed the Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture.  Wilde was a famous Irish poet and playwright during the last half of the 1800s.  He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray , and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for “gross indecency”, imprisonment, and early death at age 46.  Dublin, the capital and largest city of the Irish Republic, has a population of nearly 600,000 people with 3 times that number living in the greater Dublin region.  Their economy is robust and many residents live downtown in modest apartments costing €2,300 per month. In the historic district the front doors of the apartment homes are painted bright colors.  This tradition dates back to the...