We drove north from Belfast on the Causeway Coastal Road to the top of Northern Ireland. We drove along the Irish Sea with Scotland in view off the coast. The land was mostly farmland with big green fields, lots of sheep, some cows, and some forest lands mixed in with the farmland. It was a beautiful day, not much traffic, and we passed through lots of small towns. The photo below will just give one glimpse of our drive along the coast.

The Giant's Causeway is a major tourist stop but we arrived at mid-morning and beat the crowds. The Giant's Causeway Museum was very well done with lots of displays, videos, explanations, and photos. We spent time reviewing the volcanic activity and geology about the sixty-million year-old successive lava flows, heating, cooling, and shrinking into 40,000 interlocking basalt columns. There are a handful of similar geological sites in the world.

There was also information on the myths and legends surrounding the causeway. The stories involve mythical creatures, the sea, and I'm certain, plenty of magic. The only thing missing was the "little people."

Below is the start of the trail down to the sea and the Giant's Causeway.

In the next view, you can see in the distance as the land curved in and out along the coast. It might look like a lot of people on the rocks, but compared to the busloads of people coming down as we were leaving, it was a small crowd of tourists.

The Giant's Causeway was really a fun place to visit. It's an oddity of nature and without being able to put it into words, I just really liked the hexagonal columns of rocks. Some columns have four, five, seven, or eight sides so not all hexagonal. Some are flat and some stones are curved. They vary in height from ground level to perhaps forty feet high. I don't know about the myths and legends, but I will say that the place felt magical.