Renvyle, as promised in the Airbnb listing, is absolutely remote. We still had no food, no phone service, no way of checking in with our families, or calling for help. So once again we fled.
A short trip through Northern Ireland from Belfast up to the Giant’s Causeway has many attractions along the way; many that were used as filming locations for the series Game of Thrones. Not having watched it, I was still just as thrilled as the next person to visit these beautiful landmarks. I know the series’…
There are aspects of every trip that do not fit in with other blog entries and that lack the substance to fill out an entry of their own. Many of them are goofy and have nothing to do with the trip or the country I am in, they are just kind of a universally comical…
Ireland’s Galway Bay on the west coast forms a crescent around the Aran Islands. Today, after leaving Kylemore Abbey, we traveled south to Oughterard, Galway, the Dunguaire Castle in Kinvarra, Bell Harbour, Bealaclugga, Ballyvaughan, and into the heart of the Burren. Road Trip Essentials 101 For every road trip, you need a playlist, junk food,…
Driving through the Burren along the Wild Atlantic Way filled me with genuine awe. I live in the United States and have traveled around the globe and back, but have never ventured west to the canyons or deserts in my own country. This type of landscape was completely alien to me. Today we made our way…
I really enjoyed Dublin, honest. The city needs to get it together when it comes to street signs though. First, we learned the signs were made of some type of paper composite, and a heavy rain did away with most of the lettering a long time ago. People have written over the letters with markers,…
Belfast took its name after the Irish phrase Béal Feirste, loosely meaning the mouth of the river at the sandbanks, and has been the capital of Northern Ireland since the late 1800s. A leading city back in the Industrial Revolution and in textile manufacturing, as well as a great contributor to science and technology, Belfast graciously remains less…
At the tip top of Northern Ireland, central to the coast of Antrim, is the Giant’s Causeway. You will find this geographic sorcery in the city of Bushmills, UK and it is about an hour’s drive from Belfast. Local lore spins the tale of an Irish giant named Finn McCool that picked a fight with…
Wealthy British doctor-turned-politician Mitchel Henry built the Kylemore Castle in the heart of Connemara in the late 1800s, and for that time it was mindbogglingly futuristic. Henry had married the love of his life, Margaret, and they had several children. Shortly after the castle was finished, the family went on a vacation to Egypt where Margaret caught…
Once Hurricane Ophelia had blown over, we packed up and left our refuge in Letterfrack for a visit to the Connemara National Park. I have never seen a landscape so surreal, in person, in all of my life. Here, it looks like you are inside a virtual reality game. Every few miles the scene…
Just outside of Dublin, Maynooth feels more like a suburban neighbourhood than a town of its own. It is artful and well-designed with no pretension. You can reach Maynooth by heading west on the M4/N4/N6 Motorway route that leads cross-country from Dublin to Galway. Our intention was to snap a few photos of the Maynooth Castle…
Fernweh 