Day 11 - Ireland Adventure

Reykjavik to Minneapolis

We knew we didn't have enough time to rent a motorcycle and tour the island, so I'd texted my niece, who had spent spring break in Iceland a few year previously, to see what we shouldn't miss while we were here.

She was kind enough to offer some suggestions. and we made the most of our 24 hours there by visiting everything within walking distance of our hotel...

...like the big Church and Leif Erickson statue.

Self-sanitizing public toilets

 the Harbor

shopped for Icelandic wool (which was very comfortable here since it wasn't 90 degrees out)

and grabbed some lunch before we headed to the airport.

We'd been warned about how expensive Iceland  (understandably) is, but we weren't really prepared for the bill for an appetizer and two beers - $60.00!!!

It was good though and we had to try something different since we were there. I hesitate to admit what we actually ate, but we now can say that we've eaten: whale, char, puffin, and horse.

We took off in late afternoon and got a fabulous view of Greenland from above.

What a cool looking place! We might have to look into Greenland for our next adventure.

I think we say this after every great adventure, but this was one of our favorite trips. It may take a few years, but the Quinlans will be back to Conquering Europe by Motorcycle as soon as we are able.

Day 10 - Ireland Adventure

Dublin to, well...not home.

But wait, there's more!!!

Everything went as planned on our trip back to the airport, but once we arrived we discovered that our flight to Reykjavik was delayed.

We were assured that we'd make our connection to Minneapolis, but were dissapointed that we wouldn't have a few hours to go look around Iceland.

Needless to say, we didn't get to Reykjavik in time to make our next flight, so Iceland Air kindly offered to put us up for 24-hours, until we could catch the next day's flight.  I mean, what else were they going to do with us?

Still, we were excited for a little extra adventure.

We road the bus from the airport into town,

where we were deposited, with our bags, at City Hall.

A quick walk up the hill brought us to our hotel, where we check in and admired the view from our room.

Then walked to another hotel for our complimentary (thanks to Iceland Air) dinner.

After a good meal, we walked around and visited some pubs and waited for the sun to go down...forgetting that it was early July and we were really far up North.

This was as dark as it got that night.

Day 9 - Ireland Adventure

Belfast to Dublin

We hadn't made concrete plans for Day 9, other than returning the motorcycle to Celtic Rider mid afternoon. Someone in Belfast had told us that we HAD to visit NewGrange on our way down to Dublin. We're are skeptical when someone says we HAVE to visit something, but this time they were right.

New Grange, in County Meath, is a nice little town, but when someone tells you to visit there, they are actually telling you to go see Bru na Boinne, an ancient burial spot dating back to the Neolithic Age.

According to our tour guide, people settled there around 6000 years ago. Experts believe the structures are at least 5000 years old - older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt.

To call this landmark interesting was an understatement. Not only was it cool to see the outside and get the history on how it was discovered in a farmer's field, but we actually got to go inside the main chamber.

No cameras were allowed, but believe us when we say it was a very tight squeeze getting in, but once inside there was a larger chamber with three or more tombs, all with the same circle drawings as the outside.

The guide also demonstrated what happens at sunrise on the summer solstice, when a beam of light shines through the opening and illuminates the chamber. Think Indiana Jones, but not quite so dramatic.

Side note: We thought it was incredibly cool to be able to touch carvings that were chiseled by someone 5000 years ago. The Quinlan Clan originated in County Meath, so who knows, maybe one of Sean's ancient ancestors was the one doing the chiseling.

We left NewGrange and made it down to Kill to turn in the bike and all our gear.

We were very sad to say good-bye to the trusty BMW and our new friends at Celtic Rider - whom we cannot praise enough. Lou, Paul and Liam were fantastic and we will use their services again on our next QGCEvM adventure.

Photo: Stolen from Celtic Rider's Facebook page

We returned to Dublin and realized  we'd previously missed Dublin Castle, so we made up for that oversight.

and enjoyed one last night before we headed home the next day. We ended up where we started - Darkey Kelly's in the basement of the Harding Hotel for a couple drinks and a few songs.

Days 7 1/2 and 8 - (Northern) Ireland Adventure

Belfast

As I said previously, we weren't quite sure what we expected to find in Northern Ireland - but absolutely didn't expect to find this:

Belfast is one of the most beautiful, friendly, wonderful cities that either of us has ever been to.

We checked into our hotel and started out on our tour of  'must see' pubs.

Our first (and pretty much only) stop was the Duke of York. We didn't plan on this being the only pub we visited that night, but we walked in, ordered, and were immediately adopted by a group of men who grew up in Belfast, went their separate ways, and still got together a couple times a year to get reacquainted.

Kenny, Eddie, Ian, Thomas and Marty were around our age and had been in pop bands together in the '80s. We even later found Marty and his band, Katmandu, on YouTube and I swear I saw them at a club in London, back in the day.

To say these men were interesting is an understatement. Our conversation started with them trying to guess which part of the United States we were from. This took quite a lot of time, not only as they discusse our accents, but then to try to explain where Minnesota actually is, and why anyone would want to live there.

Talk turned to how they all knew each other, then how hard it was for some of them to go to various pubs throughout the city back in the '80s. Apparently, if you showed your ID at the door, and you had a 'Catholic' last name, you simply weren't welcome.

I'm not going to get into the history of the Irish Troubles. That's what Wikipedia is for. But we found it interesting, and kind of scary, that even in the '90s our marriage would have been considered a mixed marriage (Sean grew up Catholic, I grew up Protestant) and very, very frowned upon. Luckily the younger generations are far removed from the Irish Troubles and give that era's religious and political problem very little thought.

Oh, apparently the IRA set off a car bomb outside of the Duke of York in 1993. No one was hurt and there wasn't much damage, but still...

We spent the next day, Day 8, roaming the city.

 Opera House

a big fish sculpture

Albert Memorial

and some of the more historically significant pubs, such as The Spaniard

and Maddens

  and Kelly's Cellars.

Kelly's Cellars was a lot of fun, especially since England was playing Columbia in the FIFA World Cup. There was a large crowd on Kelly's patio - with people being equally split between supporting the two teams.

We noticed that those rooting for Sweden weren't necessarily fans of Columbia as much as they didn't want England to win.

It was a good-natured crowd though and people seemed to get along regardless of the team they were cheering for.

Day 7 - Ireland Adventure

Killybegs to Belfast

Day 7 started as we made our way up and around the top of Ireland from Sieve League to Glencolumbkille.

Through Glenveagh National Park

to Dunluce Castle where, since we hadn't seen enough castles yet, we stopped to look around.

This was one of the more ancient old things we saw, dating from the Late Medieval era.

The views from the castle were incredible.

We rode into Northern Ireland, without really realizing it until we noticed the road signs were no longer in Gaelic and the kilometers were now miles.

Obviously we knew the Troubles between Ireland and Northern Ireland had been put to rest a couple decades ago. I'm not sure what we expected, though. Being children of the '70s, our image of Northern Ireland had long been a lot of car bombs, machine guns, and barbed wire at the border.

Photo:
Stolen from the Internet

No passport check. Not even a "Welcome to Northern Ireland" sign. There was literally nothing at the border indicating we were leaving one country and entering a different country.

Side note: We were told that there would start to be passport checks once Brexit actually happened, since the United Kingdom would not longer be part of the European Union and Ireland would still be part of the European Union.

Once in Northern Ireland, we made our way to the Causeway Coastal Route that runs along the upper coast of the island and to Giants Causeway. Basically the shoreline looked like this for miles

Giants Causeway is steeped in myths and legend about why it is like it is - which is very hard to describe. It was incredibly fascinating.

And somewhere on the walk I"m sure they explained why, geographically, the ground was naturally shaped like this all along the coast.

Selfie!

We continued along the coast for most of the day until we reached Belfast. Once we found our hotel, tucked way into a side street, we were ready to hit the town.