Back in the middle of July (I can't believe it was that long ago) I ventured away from my beloved east coast of Canada to London, England. From there my family there were my base for my explorations in other European countries. First it was to Ireland with my cousin, Richie.
We arrived late at night on a cheap Ryanair flight and even though I was in a line with 4 people in front of me (in the non-UK resident que as I was getting my Australian passport stamped so that I could work in Ireland) I still got through in the same time it took Richie to get past the 100 people in front of him. We winged it with getting a bus very easily (and cheaply) from the Dublin airport. As always it seems with trying to find your hostel at night, we took a wrong turn and walked way out of our way to find it, but we eventually did and it was the second best that we had in Ireland.
We stayed a few days in Dublin, did a Sandemans new europe free tour with an amazing tour guide, went to the Guinness factory, went on a pub crawl (and drank some VERY expensive 12euro vodka and cokes), did a museum and gallery day as well as a day tour to the Wicklow Mountains where we had shots of Jameson, saw some of the places they shot P.S I love you, the Guinness lake, the bogs (where the 'Bog Bodies' were found) and went to a beautiful national park where for the first time i could honestly say that the photographs did not do it justice whatsoever.
After Dublin, Richie and I got the bus to Kilkenny where we enjoyed the relaxed pace and friendly Irish people (we hardly met the Irish while in Dublin). We also did a walking tour there and went in some nice churches and historical buildings.
On the bus it was again to Cork where I had been thinking since reading through my Lonely planet books that I would live and work and find a nice Irishman there, but, I'd already found a nice Knad and it wasn't to be, I didn't enjoy Cork as much as I thought I would, at least not enough to live there and it was there that I made the decision to come back to Canada early. I enjoyed going to the Blarney castle and kissing the Blarney stone and we saw one of my favorite movies of the year there, Inception.
From there we travelled up the road to Limerick for the day going to museums, castles and nice little parks while doing some people watching and trying not to get stabbed, as our tour guide in Cork had advised us to do...
Galway was the final stop and our stay happened to coincide with the Galway Arts festival so there were alot of arty types in the city and I quite liked the pace of the city. Loved going to the Eddie Rockets diner for milkshakes and free wifi, going on the day tour to the Cliffs of Moher, exploring all the little streets, eating cupcakes, finding where the claddagh ring originated and heading to a few of the art galleries.
Off we were again back to Dublin where we stayed in the worst hostel of the whole trip, not that it really mattered coz we were only there for the one night which we were out on the townfor most of anyway and lets just say don't really remember getting back to very well..
All in all it was a great trip, got to spend alot of chilled time with my cousin, and even though it rained everyday the green of the land seemed the glitter as the bus sped past miles and mils of sheep strewn farming land and rolling hills. I highly recommend making your own way there, have the fun and games of staying in hostels, talking to the Irish people (when you can find them) seeing the sights, hearing the traditional irish songs and getting your jig on.. Just dont forget to take an umbrella!
P.S Did you notice the links? I've now started an Etsy shop. (will talk more about the later) Click on photographs in my blog from now on to see if they're available as prints :)
P.P.S Check out the preview to my Europe Photography book
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