One of the pleasures of life besides the Pasta Carbonara
What a smell!
Is that, at any moment,
Apparently meaningless things can happen
That are destined to be the start of a beautiful story
Obviously I'm going to tell you a travel story
That began with a normal phone call
Hello?
In no time I found myself here
Still another time alone, with a tent and still in a car
But this time set up the other way
Ready to go driving against traffic under the irish sky
The Irish Sky - A trip against traffic
Let's return to that call
Hi, Mario, how are you?
It was right that Mario
The whales expert that I had met in the Turin-North Cape trip
All this time!
Just wait a second
Don't you know Mario?
Have you ever seen Turin-North Cape video?
There are people that don't know you
How is that possible?
Mario wanted to leave for Iceland
And he was calling because I had been there already a few times
Curiously it came out that he had been many times in a similar location
Different only for a letter:
Ireland
And he described me that island like a little piece of heaven
Once my curiosity was on
The story continues with another call
Hi Enrico, I'm Stefano
He was my music teacher in middle school
And he is also one of the major expert of traditional irish music
As well as an incredible storyteller and Celtic harp player
What do you think if we meet and you tell me about Ireland
Its legends or things like this?
We'll return later on what he told me in front of an irish beer
Because few days later I was already on a flight for Dublin
Where the first surprise of the journey was waiting for me
I didn't take a first class ticket Where the first surprise of the journey was waiting for me
I didn't take a first class ticket
The airline company did a mistake
And for a while I pretended to be a business-class rich man
There's even the sweet
Chocolate
And to be fair, I was getting used to that
Where is the servitude that takes my backpack?
But I was fastly back to reality
Discovering, for example, that in Ireland all is written in two languages:
English and Gaelic
Even if anyone speaks it
And that surprises weren't finished yet
Just arrived in Ireland and I got two surprises:
The first was that there wasn't a cloud in the sky
And i think this fact won't happen again
Furthermore, even if I had rented a normal Volkswagen Golf
I got this sort of four-wheels-highlighter on my hands
The surprise in the irish cars is that if you seat on the left side
You don't find the steering wheel where it should be
They put it in the wrong side
In that moment began the tragedy of left-hand drive
You always have the feeling that someone is arriving against you
Everytime you turn and change road
Panic, pure panic
It seems that everyone is crazy, but together
And I don't exaggerate if I tell you that the first ten minutes of driving
Are the most inquietant of my life
I forgot everything very fast with the irish nectar, the Guinness
It's so tasty
And the following day with the typical and low-carb Irish breakfast
After that, I was already discovering Dublin
The capital is mostly famous for its historic university, the Trinity College
And in particular for his filled with precious and unintelligible library
Including the Book of Kells, the coolest book in the world
So cool that you can't film it
If you happen to walk in Dublin
You'll surely pass across the Customs House
The Christ Church Cathedral
Or the Saint Patrick Church
Exactly that of the parade where everyone dresses green
And maybe you'll go drunk of beer at the Temple Bar
Or you'll buy something in Grafton Street
Like Gino's ice cream
But all of you will do these things
I don't need to tell you anything
But most of you will lose the most interesting stuff of the city:
The Kilmainham Gaol
That is nothing but a prison
Famous because here were killed many Irish patriots
Who, at the start of 1900, began the rebellion
That led to indipendence from centuries of English domain
It's a sinister but fascinating place
Even because the Ireland that we all know todays
In some ways, it's born behind these bars
But we'll talk about it lately
All this history stuff made me want to drink beer
Well, at this point of my visit of Dublin
I want to drink a truly special irish beer
But there are too much pubs and I don't know which to choose
I have decided to use a hook
Since once I made a videoclip to a band
Whose singer it's a very famous irish singer
I'm meeting Craig Walker here, in front of the Trinity College
And we're going to beat up a Guinness,
But not a Guinness, the Guinness itself
Some of you might know Craig Walker as ex-singer of the Archive group
And today of the Mineral band
A french-irish group whose I made some videos
That day he brought me to two different pubs
And i was astonished at the fact that they were already full at 3 p.m.
But quickly thereafter the full one was I
I'm in Grafton Street and I'm "full as an egg"
I must go home but I don't know where is home
Everyone is looking badly at me because I have a camera in my hands
And I film myself talking alone
I found my hostel miraculously
And the next morning I was ready to dive into the wild
Ok, now and here it starts my "against the traffic journey"
And because I struggle driving against the traffic
I just wanted to tell you that I love you all
And to tell mum, dad, relatives and friends that I'm sorry
I didn't want it, but it happened
Just to go out from the parking it's very difficult
Who has never driven in the British isles can't truly understand that unease
Basically it consists of a generic feeling of panic
During the normal march on the lane that in Italy it's the overtaking lane
That increases when you must enter in the lane
You must exit from the parkings
You must deal with roundabouts
You must drive in highways
Because if you stay on the right, everyone gets angry
And when you must turn at crossroads
I have fear
I have fear!
It's ghastly how they drive
To all this you must add that irish roads are often very narrow It's ghastly how they drive
To all this you must add that irish roads are often very narrow
And nevertheless they are two-way roads
Thing that creates a bit of problems when two turistic buses meet each other
But, apart from that, you get used to it very fastly
And there are moments of break where everything it's easier
At least, in one-way roads I drive quite well
But I'm thinking
Imagine them that in other parts of the world they feel like this
Terrible!
I came in Ireland to hunt that wildness that indulge only to lonely travellers
And I expected to find it just after exiting Dublin
After passing the beautiful Sally Gap
My first stop has been the Powerscourt Waterfall
But I discovered to be a disappointment because it was such a normal fall
And you also pay a ticket
If nothing else, nature was overcoming some remembers of my previous day hangover
My friend Craig, before getting drunk
Told me that just outside Dublin, in Ireland
It's like jumping in the past
Let's see
And it could be banal, but he was right
The jump in the past proved to be more wide than expected
Because outside the cities
Ireland seemed to be stopped in the Middle Age, if not before
Like the case of Glendalough
A famous monastic location with also a celtic cimitery
Where Saint Kevin retired to pray 1500 years ago
Definitely a nice place
But more fascinating were two prehistoric sites just outside Dublin
Which are Knowth and Newgrange
Basically, they are panettone structures surrounded by a veil of mistery
That anyone knows their purpose
And how it was possible to build them
Nearby there are other smaller panettone structures
A spectacular view
Overpowered phallic stones
Strange spiral symbols that remember me Inca symbols
And sometimes some small statues
Obviously carved in materials that at that age was impossible to carve
In short, one of the places where it's easy to think at aliens
But to make everything even more mystical
There is the fact that under these panettone structures
There is only a simple corridor that leads to an empty room
In the case of Knowth these corridors are built
In a manner that the first equinox ray hit directly the room
At Newgrange site it happens the same fact but at winter solstice
This is Newgrange corridor
It should be prohibited to film
So make sure you don't tell anything to anyone
Nearby there is also the Hill of Tara
A similar place for charm and structure
Including "panettoni" and phallic stones
Here stood the ancient irish capital
And it's considered the holiest place of Ireland
But it loses all its charm because of people
That treats it as a home garden
This should be the holiest site in Ireland
And they bring here dogs to crap
Watch your step!
After this further time warp i would have gone to Kilkenny
An exquisite middle-aged city full of life
More than the rustic appeal of city center streets
The nice cathedral and all the coloured shops
The true obligated stop of an irish city it's the pub
In the camping I had met Mick and Nick
Two backpackers of Verona
With which we have known some of the unwritten rules of the irish pubs
Which are:
1. The distance between you and a new best friend is a Guinness
2. Musicians are sacred and woe to him who doesn't follow the concert with passion
3. If you don't know Whiskey In The Jar you suck
The following day started with the long-standing challenge of closing the tent
Aggravated by the growing awareness of going around with a car for "zarri"
It took less than I thought
Listen, they gave me an ignorant car, i asked for a Golf, i swear
By which I was heading towards the southern coast
In particular to Cobh, a coastal city
Really pleasable and picturesque
Where my time trip was taking me to the April of 1912
When nothing less than the Titanic did here its last stop
Before the tragic end against that ice cube
Now, looking at the pier where it left
You can imagine that it was ending so awfully
But you don't make history with ifs
And without any logical relationship
I continued my trip towards the south-western cape of Ireland
Willing to see the sunset on the ocean from the Mizen Head
I was unable to do it because you could see it only if you paid the ticket
So I thought to redeem the delusion heading towards County Kerry
To drive on the most famous irish road: The Ring of Kerry
On which I harboured many expectations
Because everyone was talking about it as one of the most beautiful roads of the world
Yet, apart from some nice view, it wasn't any special
There were also droves of tourists
To the point that to see this fall without seeing thousands of people nearby
I had to go there at dawn
And again this thing that everywhere they ask you the ticket
Thousands of tourists everywhere
Little panoramic roads due to the trees
It's useless to deny it
I wasn't fully enjoying Ireland
I needed a breakthrough
To be honest, this Ireland it's becoming boring
Too much tourists, never a moment of peace
Driving alone is losing sense
It would be nice to have company
Maybe now, if I close my eyes for a second
I snap my fingers and...
Where do we go? How are you?
Wow, it's marvellous
I found two new friends, it's fantastic
They were Mick and Nick, I had left them to Kilkenny
And I had found them again in Killarney
And because all three of us were going towards the north
They became my trip fellows
Together we discovered Dingle Peninsula
That has been the real turn of the journey, for many reasons:
Meanwhile, the landscapes we ran into were the quintessence
Of what I was searching in the irish campaign
Roads were spectacular
And when the road was finished, there was the seaside
In short, a paradise of road-trip
Furthermore, I liked to think that if they didn't meet me
Mick and Nick were never going to see this place
And, above all, it was nice to share all this beauty
With someone that, until recently, was a perfect unknown
With who I discovered to have a lot in common
Like, for example, the passion for Beatles
A well-ordered way to face the bad weather
And the classic italian trend to lash out against tourists that block the way
"C'mon guys, that hamburger's bistro closes, c'mon!" [Said in a classic Verona's dialect]
"Move, that I don't have all this time!" [Again in Verona's dialect]
(Indecipherable spitted words, still in dialect)
"Holy Virgin!"
People see a pub and can't figure nothing out anymore
Besides the tragic food strategy of low-budget travels
What does a backpacker eat todays?
Slices of onion, tomato and pork with an unlikely bread
Sandwich, landscape and you are in butter the whole holiday
But more than in butter, we were going to pitch the tent in the Burren
A region in County Clare
To watch two Veronesi pitching a tent under the rain it's fun, mine is already up
Because mine is fast to pitch
You're right, maybe I could have helped them instead of laughing of them with a camera in hand
But it was so funny
When the storm was over, we started discovering the Burren
And his characteristic rocky aspect
Often it's described as a lunar landscape
By some tour operator evidently under heavy drug effect
I don't know you, but I imagine the moon a little bit differently
The charm of this country comes also from the castles that pop up from time to time
For example the Dunguaire Castle
But if you are in Ireland and you are in County Clare
You are there for the only reason to be there:
Cliffs of Moher
They are surely one of the most spectacular cliffs in Europe
The sheer cliffs can be almost 200 meters high
Giving people a breath-taking sight
The show is then enriched by a light breeze
With which I made myself the perm
But if I can suggest who passes from here, I say, come at sunset
Because not only there aren't many tourists to ruin this nature's magic
But you could also take a picture like this
Surely the most beautiful of my trip
And after the sunset, now you understood it
The watchword is one and only one: PUB
Where we discovered other unwritten rules, such as:
1. Even if it's full, it's not full
2. The coolest musicians are the ones that don't use amplification regardless all the mess around
3. And if you forgot that, "it's a must", if you don't know Whiskey in the Jar, you suck!
It comes, it comes, it comes
Passing again through the Burren, we stepped in the most famous irish dolmen
Or also in this ghostly abbey
But our destination was Galway city
I must walk around with these two backpackers
They're cute, they seem two little marsupials
It's in backpackers' spirit
But if I touch lik this you fall?
Galway has a very nice cathedral but nothing else
If you just think that this sort of stoney arc it's the principal city attraction
Street life, instead, is very rich
There are lot of bizarre artists and above all
Here in Galway everyone is abstaining from the God's honest evening's Guinness
In favour of the Galway Hooker
I know, hooker means whore, but I swear it's only a beer
And after the umpteenth toast, it as time to leave my new friends
The time has come
Love and kisses, i love you, bye
Make sure you have a safe trip
I was alone another time
And I couldn't sleep because in Ireland it's always raining
And the tent was making noise
And then everyone were making fun of me because of my yellow car
Yesterday I met two girls, or rather, two english fridges, let's say
Without opening mouth, they told me: You're italian
How did you understand that?
Ahah, we understood that from your "zarra" car
This thing stabbed me
I dind't want a yellow car
You get a flashing car, you're italian of course, you get a flashing car
But it's at the peak of the sadness that my trip got a surge
Because from Galway to north there are much less tourists But it's at the peak of the sadness that my trip got a surge
Because from Galway to north there are much less tourists
And, most of all, the landscapes open up and get more pleasable
Starting from Connemara, one of the places where
If you want to get back to peace with the universe
You just have to look outside the window
You find also incredible beaches that look almost like stolen from a tropical heaven
Even if here is definitely colder
And bathing here isn't the first thing that comes to mind
After a quick hop to Kylemore Abbey
I passed through all the Connemara Park until Strandhill, a village nearby Sligo
Where finally I found nature's pleasures
That give themselves especially to lonely travellers
I refer to the thoughts that wrap you on a sand dune at sunset or on the seaside
In front of the turbulent sky that characterizes Ireland in the world
Or on a expanse of green rocks
Now I will say a banal, obvious and terribly self-evident sentence
But that sometimes fits well:
The sea is one of the pleasures of life
There are also mussels here
The sound of the sea is one of the sweetiest things that Ireland can offer
And as we're on the subject of music
It's time to talk about Celtic harp
It's absolutely the symbol of the country
You can find it everywhere
It's the symbol of Guinness and Ryanair
It's printed on all the coins, on national monuments, on souvenirs
And even on the irish presidential flag
And it's about this that I and my music teacher were talking that night
That suggested me to visit the town of Keadue
Hometown of the most famous national harpist: someone called O'Carolan
It has been one of the last harpists because in the 1700
English decided to kill every person just owning an harp
On purpose to destroy irish culture
In Keadue there is nothing but this monument
O'Carolan is buried in the town cimitery
And his grave is noticeable because has more candles and offers than all the others
And then because it's written
That place was the musical crossroad of the island
And it had the feeling of the true essence of the country
It's incredible, this the most irish place in Ireland that i've seen until now
And I'm the only tourist. Fantastic!
It was high time to travel across Donegal roads
An harsh and wild region that gives incredible shows to the eyes
Especially Slieve League, other vertigo cliffs
Adorned by two pitfalls, shaped like chair and desk
Shortly thereafter I was going to pass the border
And Giant's Causeway is the principal attraction
An exagonal blocks cliff, that, following the myth
It was the start of a path built by a giant to arrive in Scotland
Along the northern coast many people, sadly included me
Fall for the most commercial rope bridge of the world
There I got to know Nietta e Mariangela, the Thelma & Louise of Matera
With my beautiful car
A wonderful car, the most yellow car around, the only color missing here it's on your car
Hardly passes through without clamour
It's horrible
With which we got stuck on the island always because of the tourists army
The thing that makes this place fascinating is that it is known by few tourists
It's pristine. We're stuck. There's no way to exit the island
Ye ye, you laugh now, but you don't exit from here anymore
Because every person that passes on the bridge must stop to take a selfie
Right? It's a mess
Watch there, n.1 "cheeese"
Genius
Overflying the fact that also my friends had to take a picture on the bridge
In trips, no meeting is casual
So much so that it's only because of them that I found indications for the nicest road in Northern Ireland:
The Dark Hedges
Northern Ireland is fully-fledged a United Kingdom region
So speed limits are in miles and not in kilometers
Buses are red and two-storey and phone cabs are known by everyone
But why Northern Ireland is separated by the rest?
It's a difficult and controversial history
And the one and only able to explain it is "O Scienziat"
"O Scienziat" has explained by stages irish history:
1900: Ireland doesn't exist
1916: Ireland tries an independence war, the responsibles were killed in Kilmainham Gaol
And become national martyrs
1922: Ireland becomes independent, but United Kingdom keeps six counties by majority of Protestants
All this fits well for someone, but for other not
Begins a civil war
1960s: Northern Ireland is the reign of discrimination
English Protestants maltreat irish Catholics, that have different job lists
And by law they can be imprisoned without a reason and without a process
1967: Civil Rights Association is born, that organizes for years pacific marches to protest And by law they can be imprisoned without a reason and without a process
1967: Civil Rights Association is born, that organizes for years pacific marches to protest
30 January 1972: During a pacific march in Derry, Ireland gets to know his worst day, the Bloody Sunday
When the march arrived here, around Rossville Street, English Army started to shoot on the crowd
Killing, without any reason, 14 demonstrators, mainly minors
Anyway, all of them shot and killed in the back
In the sadly famous Bloody Sunday
The facts of that sunday are very well described in the movie "Bloody Sunday" by Paul Greengrass
But beyond cinema, the event had a strong impact also on the music world
Many artists wrote songs on the Bloody Sunday
The first one was Paul Mccartney, just after few weeks from the event
Wrote and published "Give Ireland back to the irish"
Song that obviously in England got censored but in Ireland went first in the ranking
"Give Ireland back to the irish" is an unknown track, but in the car it turns it on
Not to be outdone, also John Lennon dedicated a song to the event
But if you talk about music, about Ireland and about Bloody Sunday
You must talk about U2 and nothing else
The history of the Protestants-Catholics conflict really upset me
Almost more when from Derry I went to Belfast
That, from this point of view, it's still far behind in the peace process
Only 20 years ago, Shankill Road Protestant block, where the Union Jack flies
And Falls Road Catholic block were the most dangerous places on Earth
Bombings were a daily occurrence
Today for tourists it exists an easier way to know the city history
The best way to know it is to be taken around Belfast by a local taxist
Obviously he don't want to be filmed, that gives us a measure of what is still happening here
During the tour I heard frightening stories on the meaning of the commemorative murales around the city
This murales is dedicated to the Protestant guy that killed most Catholics in the conflict
But the thing that shocked me more is the fact that, like Berlin and Jerusalem
Belfast has a wall that divides in half the city
It is longer that Berlin Wall and higher than Berlin Wall
Still nowadays gates are closed at Saturday and during night hours
This conflict is very similar to the one between israeli and palestinian
Namely a mix between politics and religion
So much so that is full of support messages between irish and palestinian
Particularly this one, that speaks more that thousands of words
For europeans the substancial difference is that Israel is a very far and different country
Ireland, instead, is in the backyard
And they also have our same religion
And thinking that two neighbours could kill each other for religious reasons
It's something that literally marked my trip
But returning to lighter arguments
Belfast is also famous for the Titanic museum
And for the wreck of the boat that took people from the port to the Titanic
Because it was too big to dock
20 pounds to see this banger
But the transportation that gives Belfast notoriety is another one
There she is!
And even if my yellow car wasn't a 88 miles/h Delorean
The journey in Ireland had been really a time trip
From prehistory to middle age, up to the tragic modern history
And whil I was making my return towards Dublin
It was like everything was flowing before my eyes
I wanted to pass my last night in Dublin drinking and cheering at the trip
And because the distance between you and a new best friend is a Guinness
This complete stranger offered me two pints of beer and told me nice stories on Dingle
In irish pubs are often to happen things like that
And in the middle of the pints I also discovered that in that days
It was popular a certain "Ice Bucket Challenge"
Apparently, this fashion of throwing freeziong water against themselves
Is arrived til Dublin
There are 13 degrees
It's ghastly!
Every country has its way to indulge and to get to know themselves
And I, in my first days in Ireland, was completely wrong
I was arrived there just to enjoy it and to see landscapes
But Ireland can offer a lot more
Ireland must not be seen, must be lived, even when it rains
It's been raining all day but it's nice to take this rain
Rain is one of the pleasures of life
Enjoy it, everywhere you are, enjoy it, because rain is beautiful
What I keep inside from these two weeks in this country are its legends, its mysteries
Its music and mostly its history, especially recent northern tragedies
I don't deny to have been at a loss for words in front of some rare beauty landscape
Like the Cliffs of Moher, the Giant's Causeway or the Slieve Leagues
But this emerald world's corner is a bit like a woman that attracts you with her beauty
You take her out drinking something but after a while you understand
That is better to listen at her stories than look at her beautiful green eyes
And while you listen to what she tells, you see how beautiful is the sky above her
And how good is the bitter taste of the Guinness that slips on the music that accompanies your night
And remember that if you come up to drive against traffic to conquer this beautiful woman