tourism

Autumn Leeds

Magical Bench 2

Late last month, I was blessed with the chance to head to the home of JL, for Jewish New Year. She comes from Leeds, and had promised that we would have super weather. I couldn’t wait to go, meet her lovely family (Her parents just had their 40th wedding Anniversary), relax and have a bit of time out.

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I can say that she certainly delivered on the promise of the weather. The first blush of autumn was certainly on the trees, but we were out in our shirt sleeves and sandals until 11pm – on the first of October. This rarely happens in Europe – let alone in UK or Ireland. In fact, it was so warm, I had to buy a sundress while I was there and came home with a touch of sun tan. All I can say is that it was perfect – and because it was such beautiful weather, we spent lots of time at the parks in and around Leeds.

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One of the parks that we went to was a lovely park that was made out of a defunct Amusement park, called Golden Acre (Mrs. L’s favorite place). The park has several themed gardens around a pond, including an Experimental garden, a flower garden (complete with the biggest flowers I’ve seen in ages), and a nice cafe in the middle of it all. There was also a charming old guy who apparently comes every day to feed some of the friendliest squirrels I’ve ever seen. This little lady was so friendly, she posed for pictures – and got a few peanuts in return.

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Other than spending a few says in Synagogue where the New Year was being celebrated with the blowing of the Shofar, eating Mrs.L’s fabulous cooking and chatting a lot with the delightful Mr. L, JL and I went out in Leeds and had some fun time doing a bit of shopping in the Leeds Arcades from the Victorian Era. More on that tomorrow, but for now, enjoy the sunset.

Sunset over Golden Acre Park

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Dunseverick castle ruins

Dunseverick castle ruins
This way to Dunsverick Castle

Last April, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz to see the coast of Northern Ireland. I happened to have a map with us (let’s just say we had an adventure in getting there because the GPS ran out of battery) and we ended up taking the scenic route on the way up. One there, we saw the Giant’s Causeway, and decided to pause for the other very close by sites. I would have to say that the most unimpressive site was the castle ruins at Dunsverick Castle.

Dunseverick castle ruins

Basically, this castle was built originally sometime around 1525 BC. Surrounded by the ocean on three sides,Dunseverick was a key ancient site in Ireland, one of the royal roads from Tara, seat of the Kings of Ireland ended here. The site was originally founded by Sobairce, one of the Kings who built a fortress here to rule the ancient Kingdom of Dariada, the location is named after him – Dunsobairce (Fortress of Sobairce) now Dunseverick. Around 500 AD, St. Patrick visited the location, and around 900 AD, the Vikings are said to have raided the fortress extensively. Sometime around the 1500’s AD, a small fortress with round tower was built on the spit of land, and these are the remains that are there today. (There are also sheep, who apparently are great climbers down one steep drop and up to the top of that spit of land…)

Dunseverick castle ruins
All that remains of a once impressive fortress… time and tide wait for no man…

You can see more photos on the Giant’s Causeway flickr set here.

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Giant’s Causeway

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Far on the north coast of Ireland is an area of about 40,000 interlocking naturally occuring basalt columns. They were caused by a volcanic eruption, and is a Unesco world heritage site. Last April, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz to see this fascinating place.

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The causeway itself is actually an area of several horse-shoe shaped inlets which can be reached by a cliff top walk, a hike down a series of 162 steep stairs (known as the shephards steps), or a cheeky little bus taken from the Giant’s causeway hotel. On the way down, we chose to take the cliff walk/stairs – and then the bus back – because the weather was so beautiful. We went past the Pipe Organ (below), and into a giant bowl shaped area known as the Ampitheater.

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On the way back we passed the Giant’s Boot, pipe, and also his Camel. According to Irish legend, the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. At some point, tired of waiting, the Scottish Giant came across the water, and somehow, Fionn found out. Realizing that the scottish giant was larger than he himself, Fionn asked his wife to dress him up as a baby. When Benandonner saw the baby, he thought that Fionn must be a truly large giant indeed (because of the size of the baby) and fled back to Scotland, leaving his boot and pipe behind him on the beach.

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Jacqui and Liz posing on the boot…

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Looking out towards the pipe stem
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The Camel, sleeping after the long walk (Giants need something larger than a horse, apparently)

You can see more photos on the Giant’s Causeway flickr set here.

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