I had to fly to Ireland this week on a business trip. I was setting up some computerized monitoring equipment at Allergan: this is the factory where 100% of the world's botox is manufactured - so obviously of vital importance to the beautiful people of
who rely on their regular botox makeovers.
Photos below are thumbnails. Click on any photo to see a (much) bigger version which you'll most likely have to scroll around the screen if you expand it to full size.
So I flew there on Monday and was hard at work all day Tuesday and Wednesday, but I had a few hours to kill this morning before my return flight, so I took a scenic detour on the way to the airport and snapped a few pics to bore you all with.
This is one of the main streets at Westport (there are another couple of streets of similar importance before you get down to the also-rans). As you can see, it was what they call a 'soft day' in Ireland, meaning that it was raining much of the time - this seems to be the usual weather whenever I go there.
This is looking in the opposite direction to the place they call 'The Octogon' - my hotel was the orangy-yellow colored building you can see.
See that little flowerbed thing in front of the pillar with the statue? This guy decided to perch on it as I walked back to the hotel, so I could take his photograph.
View from the road south out of town.
Turning inland, the road headed up through some hills and past a few lakes.
I found this monument thing on the side of the mountain road.
Those photos make it look like everything was barren, but down in the valleys by the lakes a few trees were growing.
Here's a snap of my hire car, complete with lens flare.
And there was a rowboat tied up near where I'd stopped the car.
A simple but effective deterrent to speeding that you find deployed on many of Ireland's rural roads.
Many of the bigger lakes have lots of islands. When the glaciers retreated after the last ice age, they deposited much of their burden in a series of low mounds of rubble, called drumlins. Wherever a low-lying area with lots of drumlins later flooded to become a lake, the tops of the drumlins form islands.
Remember, click for bigger version!
One benefit of all the 'soft days' is that there is no shortage of water.
I came across this place on the side of the road, but by then it was nearing the time I had to be back at the airport, so I didn't get to look around.
Trip to Westport, Ireland (photos)
Re: Trip to Westport, Ireland (photos)
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