This spectacular rock formation – Northern Ireland's only Unesco World Heritage site – is one of Ireland's most impressive and atmospheric landscape features.

It’s a vast expanse of regular, closely packed, hexagonal stone columns looking for all the world like the handiwork of giants.

The phenomenon is explained in the Giant's Causeway Visitor Experience, housed in a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly building half-hidden in the hillside above the sea.

Visiting the Giant's Causeway itself is free of charge but you pay to use the car park on a combined ticket with the visitor center; parking-only tickets aren't available.

In good visibility, the Cliffs of Moher (Aillte an Mothair, or Ailltreacha Mothair), located in western Clare, are staggeringly beautiful.

The entirely vertical cliffs rise to a height of 214m (702ft), their edge abruptly falling away into a ceaselessly churning Atlantic.

In a progression of vast heads, the dark sandstone and siltstone strata march in a rigid formation. Views stretch to the Aran Islands and the hills of Connemara.

One of Ireland's blockbuster sights, it includes a high-tech visitor center, a 19th-century lookout tower and a wealth of walking trails. Visiting by boat can bring the best views.

Stretching across northern Clare, the rocky, windswept Burren region is a unique striated lunar-like landscape of barren grey limestone.

It was shaped beneath ancient seas, then forced high and dry by a great geological cataclysm. Wildflowers in spring give the Burren brilliant, if ephemeral, color amid its stark beauty.

Villages throughout the region include the music hub of Doolin on the west coast, Kilfenora inland and charming Ballyvaughan in the north, on the shores of Galway Bay.