Day 10 - June 10th

Monday began with a trip to the Dark Hedges, which turned out to be just a stroll through some entwined trees. An ambassador mentioned that some scenes from Game of Thrones had been filmed there, but I didn't watch the show so I really had no connection at all to the site. Then we hopped back in the van and headed for the Giant's Causeway, which was a destination that I had been looking forward to since the trip started. 

As the story goes, the Irish giant Fionn MacCool had constructed the Giant's Causeway to fight the Scottish giant Benandonner, though MacCool realized he was too big for his boots and fled Scotland after seeing how big Benandonner was. He then supposedly disguised himself as a baby and hid away in a cradle. When Benandonner came by the MacCool household and saw the size of Fionn MacCool's "baby," he figured that MacCool must be even bigger than himself, causing Benandonner to run away and destroy the causeway in his wake. The causeway I saw today could hardly have been built by any living being, with the tens of thousands of interlocking columns jutting up out of the ground and all. Not only were the hexagonal columns a thing of beauty, but so was the surrounding landscape. When standing on some of the outer columns in the causeway, you could look up and down the coast and see rolling hills as well as steep cliffs. The pictures attached below will only do the views an ounce of justice. I also wrote a paper on the Giant's Causeway in my senior year of high school, so it was fun to finally see it in person.

Unfortunately, strong winds meant we couldn't go on the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, but I was able to snap a few pictures at the Portaneevy viewing point. In one direction, you could even see Rathlin Island and Scotland in the distance (attached below, plants in foreground with Rathlin Island out in the water and Scotland in the far distance off to the right). We also passed by Loughareema, or the "Vanishing Lake," which sometimes contains water and sometimes doesn't. There's even an Irish set dance named after it.

We ended the day with another Irish dance class in Crossgar, learning another 32-bar showcase piece from ex-Riverdance members.