Leaving Galway

We spent the first two weeks of August, traveling around Ireland. We started in Galway and proceeded more or less counter-clockwise, including time in Ulster, then Donegal, before traversing the island to Dublin and our flight home. I shot over 1000 frames, so expect to see lots of verdant landscapes, castles and other postcard-genre, tourist shots over the coming days and weeks.

The tour was designed for photographers and their non-photographer partners and I was expecting to travel around in a small coach. In fact we were in one of those gigantic modern buses. The first couple of days in Galway town were quite rainy but then we got on the bus and left. Here are a few snaps through the window of the bus before we made our first stop.

Keswick to Walla Crag

The next morning, after another hearty breakfast, a taxi took our bags onward to our hotel in Keswick and deposited us in the town center. From there we hiked up to Wall Crag, at an elevation of over 375 meters, for even more stunning views including of the Derwent Water.

Click any individual image to see each one enlarged to full size.

Rydal Mount to Grasmere

We continued walking the trails from Rydal Mount, some of it in a steady light rain, down to our next stop, Grasmere (not the one in Staten Island!). Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth lived earlier in his life is a major attraction here. By the time we arrived apps told us we’d walked 10 miles. This proved to be the case almost every day of this vacation to the point that I actually lost a few pounds!