The Burren

A big portion of northern County Clare is a landscape of gray limestone and sparse vegetation called the Burren. The relative horizontal layers of limestone give the hills a terraced, contoured look.

Close up, the limestone surface is etched and pitted. Stone walls crisscross and contrast with the natural landscape, although they are made of the same gray stone.

The Poulnabrone Dolmen is also made of slabs of limestone. This is one of many "portal tombs" in Ireland and marks the grave of dozens of neolithic adults and children, probably before 3600BC!

In case I haven't noted this already, the roads in rural Ireland are narrow. Sometimes there is a little more room than it looks for cars -- but not so much for buses. These two took ten minutes to inch their way past.