After a short night we needed a huge full
irish breakfast !
And then we reach the Burren National Park.
Its namecomes from the Irish Boireann meaning
stony place. The park covers 1500 ha of karst landscape.
The terrain is composed of limestone slabs split fissures called grikes.
There, alpine, mediterranean and arctic species coexist.
The western orchid grows alongside the blue gentian.
The park is also home to diverse wildlife, such as badgers and kestrels.
The park is also rich in archeological remains.
It contains cairns, passage tombs and dry stone forts.
Human occupation dates back to the Neolithic period,
over 5000 years ago.
The Poulnabrone Dolmen is one of them.
The "millstone hole" is a portal tomb made
between 3800 and 3200 BC which contains a burial chamber
where we found 33 skeletons. Various grave goods were found:
axe, beads, pottery, crystals.
The site served as a ritual, burial site...?
Grikes are deep fissures that form in limestone slabs.
They appear as a result of the dissolution of limestone by slighlty
acidic (carbonic) rainwater.
This slow process called karstification erodes
the rock over thousand years;
The flat areas are called clints and the alternance is beautiful .
Grikes can reach several tens of centimeters
in depth and sometimes more than a meter.
They create a sheltered humid and sahaded microclimate.
During the english conquest and colonization,
this site served as a refuge for Gelic populations driven
from the fertile lands.
There are traces of abandonned villages linked to the great Famine.
Winter pastures, small fields demarcated by stone walls remained the norm.
So many different flowers there, from 3 very different climatic origins !
For example:
Alpine: the spring gentian small and blue (mountains Central Europe)
Mediteranean: the sanguineum geranium, pinky south Europe
Arctic: the avens, short white flower.
A treasure of flowers !!!
There were lot of trails that we could do there
we chosed one...
a view on Mullaghmore mountain.
Amané said she loves landscapes with rocks.
But it was so short that we chosed an other one...
and this time we had some explanations in different points.
The doline: a natural landform found in karst landscapes
(areas underlain by soluble rocks such as limestone)
Many blocky stones of chert:
an impurity found in limeston, coming from
sea sponges and diatones.
Here that was one a coral reef: so many many
beautiful fossilised corals...
Amané wanted to read every explanations in english...!!
Wildflower Meadow on slighlty deeper and richer soil.
After all those walks a quick lunch in the village nearby.
On the road to Gallway we saw a monastery and decided to visit it.
It was the Kilmacduagh monastery from the 7th century.
There is. a legend about the creation of this site.
Saint Colman MacDuagh was walking in the woods
when his stole fell off.
He interpreted it as a sign and decided
to build his monastery on the same spot.
As all monaseries sites
there are a cemetery full of irish cross
and a huge tower (same as Glendalough)
And we reached the city : Galway.
We found a wall with figures of irish feminist revolutionnaries !
and an other nice funny one...
As usual the city is full of colors, there were some musicians...
Pubs and people enjoying in the streets
We dined at the mac donnagh...
which offers many different fresh fishes.
The colored city on the ocean.
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