Newgrange in Ireland

One of the most amazing things in Ireland is nothing Celtic or modern but the neolithic tomb site at Newgrange, built around 3200 B.C. It is a huge tomb built by neolithic people that we know little else about.

Here you can see Shirley my sister-in-law, Sandy and Chris standing about 50 yards in fron the huge structure.


One of the most interesting things about Newgrange is that it is designed so that only at the winter solstice, sun comes in through the upper transom you see here and illuminates the inner chamber for a few minutes. That seems like remarkable scientific knowledge for stone age people in 3200 B.C.


Here in front of the tomb entrance is a lintel stone carved in mysterious spirals that no one knows what they mean, but that many people have guessed about. Inside the tomb there are many other carvings, including a triple spiral that shows up on a lot of the jewelry that they are trying to get people to buy all over Ireland. I guess it is supposed to give the jewelry buyers an idea that they are getting in touch with their ancient, pre-Stonehenge, pre-Pyramids ancestral shamanic selves.

Snarkiness about commercial exploitation aside, it is a pretty cool place.

Giants' Causeway

Here is Chris striking a pose at the site of an old Led Zeppelin album cover. (Houses of the Holy for those of you who care about such things.) Otherwise known as Giants' Causeway, the main tourist attraction of northern Ireland.


It sits on a magnificent headland on the north coast of northern Ireland, which you can see here.

Road to the Isles, Green Wellies

The Duke of Argyll, head of the Campbells, still lives in this castle, Inveraray. We visited, had lunch in the tea shoppe, took photos, admired the extensive collection of family portraits by famous artists, the enormous china collection, and lots of spears, claymores, pole-arms, etc. The complete lived-in-castle experience, in short.

After that we drove through a lot of Scotland, headed toward Glasgow. We saw many lochs, lots of mountains, and even more sheep. We stopped for a break a Green Wellies car stop, which seem to favor green rubber Wellington boots as their symbol. Even Green Wellies had a lot of white woolies in back of it, as you can see in the photo.














As we approached Glasgow, I was reminded of something that Sandy found on the Internet even before we left for Scotland. The ancestral village of Bulgley Renfrew, where Gardners lived for a couple of centuries before coming to the U.S. is now underneath the Glasgow airport. You can see a freeway sign right after the airport for what is left of other parts of Renfrew.














Sic transit gloria ancestral village.

High school band in Scotland

I wonder if it would be more fun to be in high school in band in Scotland, where you could really torture the passersby with a bagpipe.

Wandering around after dinner in Oban on the coast we ran into a high school pipe band practicing marching on the street. It seemed really exotic until I saw a really familiar type to contextualize it a bit -- a band Mom holding a plastic bucket for contributions. The high school band fund-raiser may transcend all cultural boundaries after all.

Castle Stalker, ruined churches and Oban

We discovered in Scotland that we were pretty much all suckers for romantic ruined castles on lochs, which are fortunately a Scottish specialty. This is Castle Stalker, which we made our tour guide and driver, Mark, turn around and go back to so we could have a good look at it. Some clever boots had put a restaurant and gift shop on the best view point, so it was a welcome rest stop anyway. We have been putting lots of miles on the small van he is driving us around in, so leg stretching, castle viewing breaks are always welcome.

We kept going after Castle Stalker, on to another Scottish specialty ruins of churches and even cathedrals. Here are Sandy, Chris, and my brother Jack exploring the ruins of the chapel by Castle Dunstaffnage, close to Oban, where we spent the night.














Chris was feeling his oats after a long day in the car, so here he is hamming it up in a window of that same church.


















Oban is beautiful little town on the west coast of Scotland, where you can take ferries out to the Western Isles. This is the view from our hotel there.

Canals, rivers, lochs, locks and Loch Lochy

We drove down the Great Glen in Scotland a couple of days ago. It is a long valley with a whole series of rivers, often with canals alongside, connecting into lakes or lochs.

Here is a canal, with a whole mixed bag of people using it, from kayakers to bicyclists on the tow path, not to mention actual ships, mostly pleasure boats that cruise the lochs and canals. The various boats and ships get from lochs to canals via locks, which raise ships to a higher level of the canal about 15 feet at a time by closing a gate behind the ship and raising the water level with hydraulics.

Here is a picture of one we explored. You can see a ship about ready to get raised up to the next level. You can also possibly see my brother Jack, the engineer, looking on with interest at the top.

To complete the linguistic silliness, this ship is leaving Loch Lochy to get raised up to the canal. The Loch was the scene to a nasty clan battle hundreds of years ago, but it looks placid enough in this photo.

Loch Ness, Castle Urquhart

After we left Inverness, we headed back down south through the Scottish highlands past Loch Ness. Chris and I had fun skipping rocks on Loch Ness as you can see here.

I found the highlands combination of lochs/lakes and mountains incredibly evocative. They reminded me in many ways of the Norwegian fjords, which are some of my favorite natural sites on the planet. The next photo shows just one example.

The next photo shows Urquhart Castle, on Loch Ness.

It is the ultimate winner for best romantically distressed ruin of a castle in a dramatic setting. We tramped all over the castle, with Chris doing his best imitation of a young mountain goat, leaping about on the rocks, giving Sandy fits.