July 2 Derry or Londonderry

The name choice for the neighboring city is determined by your political affiliation.  Derry for Irish independence, Londonderry for English association.  We avoided the problem by not going into the city and instead touring Glenveagh National Park, about 90 minutes west of the city.

This was a tender port, so we went to the lounge to exchange our tour tickets for bus tickets and waited for a tender ride to shore.  Lots of people going out so it took awhile.

 We shared the crossing with this auto ferry.  We were anchored in a river but the high current said that it was tidal.  Previously we had watched our tenders crossing crabbed over at 45 degrees to counter the current.

 Tender docked in a tiny harbor with lots of fishing boats.

 Here's the secret to how those fishing boats get so colorful.

 On the bus and underway to Glenveagh.  There's our ship out in the river.

 Mussel farming is big here also.  Several of our guides have said the Irish people generally aren't fish eaters.  For some it is too much fish on Fridays when they were children, for others it reminds them of hard times when that was all there was to eat so even though they are surrounded by the bounty of the sea, the bounty is shipped out.

 We arrive at Glenveagh Castle located on Lough Beagh.  Very picturesque.

 The castle actually dates from the 19th century, built as a summer getaway by a rich guy.

 No picture taking inside during the castle tour (at least for ordinary people -- the cruise ship Destination Services Manager was on our tour and posted many pics from inside).  Think Great Gatsby sort of things inside.  And summer only -- even then they had to have peat fires going in most of the rooms just to stay warm.

They did have gardens outside, and we had a few minutes to tour there.

 I think that's a swimming pool for very hardy souls.

 Ireland is full of these little machines that turn grass into sweaters.

 Lots of barley fields  (cynthia takes"ruts" pictures)

 The sun came out on our return to the tender.  As our luck would have it, we were the first people into our tender -- meaning that we were the first people to NOT get onto the preceding tender.  We watched it fill up and float away, with ours arriving 15 minutes later.  But it was sunny and breezy and a balmy 17degrees.  (~64ish US)