We were cruising through Northern Ireland, sometimes crossing the border with the Republic ... often it felt like in the middle of nowhere because the rural regions are not densely populated (In contrast to Dublin or Belfast, the most important centres of the island). In turn, this makes for many astonishing places of untouched natural beauty. One you of these you will get to know in this post.
Special places need special routes, and sometimes the hard way is rewarding. Our bus had to drop us far away from this sight, so we had to walk alongside the cliffs a lot before reaching this destination of natural beauty in the County Antrim. We passed a rope bridge you could cross for an extra payment (used to conserve the site and structure), but the queue (as you can see in the picture) was very long so we did not use it. However, we got some great shots of the small remote islands surrounding this site.
Slowly arriving at our main destination, we saw ragged cliffs reaching out into the ever-biting sea; the small tip you can see in the middle is called "The Devil's Organ" because ... well, it looks like a church organ, but it's all natural and in stone. A crazy coincidence, right? So you can understand well why so many spots from Game of Thrones or even Braveheart were filmed in Ireland and Northern Ireland ...
So we arrived at the beginning of the Giant's Causeway, with many other people already before us (surprisingly many Spanish-speaking people), using their audioguides or just taking in the sight (if not busy taking photographs). The quasi-hexagonal shapes of basalt are all of natural, volcanic origin and about 60 million years old! Looks like someone played Minecraft or Lego in real life and forgot to brush it over ... it is quite a unique place.
The peak (or rather last remaining bridgehead) of the Giant's Causeway is a great spot for photos, as you can see! It's like the last point of land before the Atlantic Ocean takes over ... many others were busy climbing it, and I even made it to the top! *starts singing "On Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons* It felt epic to stand on this formation and be surrounded by the gushing ocean with strong gusts of wind tearing at your clothes. DO IT! JUST DO IT!
Celtic folk mythology tells us the following story: An Irish giant wanted to duel his Scottish rival, so he built this bridge to cross it and get him. Just after finishing this task, he felt so tired that he had to go back home and rest. Meanwhile, his rival followed him, so he had to hide and fake being a baby. His wife talked to the rival, inviting him in for a tea, but when the foreign giant saw the "baby", he panicked because he was afraid of the father that must have been even larger than his "son"! So he fled back home, trampling over the bridge which crumbled under his feet, leaving the "ruins" we see today.
We instead returned to our bus before more stones could crumble under our feet (just kidding, the structure is very safe to walk on), and we continued our jolly journey through Northern Ireland ...
