Monastic ruin site south of Dublin
A castle, in the town of Ferns. And some 7th- or 8th-century crosses, which were once monuments or route markers, but now occupy a small cemetary in the middle of a sheep field outside Ahenny.
Kells, in Kilkenny county, is the ruin of a walled medieval town built around a priory. It's not the place where the book came from. That's a different town.
A ruined abbey. Ruined because it was attacked repeatedly in the 13th century. Why attack an abbey? Think about it: it's a bank for virgins.
South tip of the Hook peninsula in Wexford. With ruins! This one is a Templar fort beside the ocean, with an intact tower that you can climb up inside.
Mountain pass through Sally Gap, south of Dublin. It started to snow as we passed through.
Newgrange is the site of a number of tremendously important prehistoric pit graves. Since we got there several hours after closing time, this is what we got to see.
On a hilltop overlooking the town of Slane and surrounding countryside, around 0deg celcius, in an icy 30mph wind. It took about an hour to regain full feeling in my fingers.
From the Archaeological Museum in Iraklion, Crete. A fine example of ancient museum display techniques, complete with high-tech flickering flourescent lights. The photos make the exhibits look better-lit than they really were. But, the art was cool.
Knossos is the biggest and most important Minoan ruin site on Crete. Most of the stuff in the Iraklion museum comes from here. In place of the shiny things he found in the ground, its excavator substantially rebuilt parts of the site. It's like nineteenth-century History Disneyland, without the teacup rides.
Most of these were taken on the road to Zaros in the mountains of southern Crete. I particularly like the pickup truck towing the donkey towing the goats. Awesome.
Kommos beach, in the south of Crete. To the south beyond the rock wall is Matala, and Ayia Galina lies to the north along the shore of the bay. The ruins of a Minoan palace lie just behind the beach, along with a stack of grass umbrellas for the tourist season.
Phaistos (or Festos, depending which road signs you believe) is the second-most significant Minoan palace site on Crete. It's been minimally reconstructed (compared to its bigger, whorier brother at Knossos), although "minimal" is relative. Mostly I liked the stones with writing still on them. And it has an awesome view.
This beach is accessible via a half-hour scramble over the mountains near Matala on the south coast of Crete. It's about the same size as Matala's own beach, but the sand is different (finer, and a rusty reddish color) and the swimmers - at least when we were there - mostly naked. On the way back, we passed a parade of sweaty tourists who looked like they were going to die of heatstroke. In April.
The Temple of Olympian Zeus, close to Syntagma square in central Athens. The ground cover is clover and chamomile.