Ireland, Part 1

I'm breaking this into 2 posts - there's just so many pics!! So Saturday and Sunday are in this post and Monday and Tuesday are in the next post down.

Friday: We flew out in the evening to Belfast. On arrival we picked up our car, and if you can, recall my Scotland post where I extolled the benefits of renting in the off-season . So this time we were expecting to get a Toyota Corolla. As we were walking out to the Budget lot, Matt opened the key envelope and found a BMW key - so we drove around Ireland in a BMW 520D, not bad at all!!

Saturday:
We drove north from Belfast to the northern coastline to see the Giant's Causeway.



We took the scenic drive back along the coastline, and also stopped to see this castle:




SUNDAY: We drove south to Dublin, stopping at several places along the way (mostly ruins of churches, abbeys, and the like):

Everywhere we looked:

As we drove through one small town, they were just getting started with their St. Paddy's festivities. We parked and stayed to watch. Things kicked off with a raft race.


Then there was a parade - the highlight of which was this green-painted dog riding a horse:

Ok, on to post #2 below!