5000 years ago

Knouth, Newgrange in Co. Meath, one of the worlds most ancient, better called prehistoric, places.

South-West - Truely Gorgeous

Following up on my traveling around Ireland series, this time we went to the South-West of Ireland. To read about previous road trips, check posts To The West and To North-West. The maps of our drive was as follows:

We first went to Limerick on the way to Dingle Peninsula, drove around peninsula, back to Dingle, towards Kilkee crossing river, following day to Cliffs of Moher and finally Galway and back to Dublin.

As I have said it in previous posts also, my love for Ireland just keeps growing everytime I visit anything outside Dublin :)

Some highlights of trip, if someone wanna do similar.

• Limerick was great, but it was raining so we cudn't manage to see much but still in between sun n rain patches, we managed to see the castle and church. The best part, food was way cheaper than Dublin and we enjoyed a wonderful cup of coffee and home made scones for less than 12 euros for 3 people.
• Normally, people go to Ring of Kerry. But we decided to go to Dingle Peninsula. The only thing I knew of it was the famous Dolphin called Fungie, which we off-course saw the next day.
• Dingle is just gorgeous, no words can explain it. It was not the best weather, but atleast it was not raining with some sun shining once in a while and we drove all along the peninsula, its probably one of the most beautiful drive in Ireland I have taken. Also lots of prehistoric sites to see, the landscape is out of world :) and also visited the west most point of Ireland, "The Basket Islands", which comprises of 7 islands. We went to the edge of one of the islands and it was soo soo coool. Unmissable.
• We then drove back to Dingle and passed Connor Pass, it was bit overcast by then, so we didn't stop but it looked very tempting to have a walk. But we needed to cross the river by ferry to go across and didn't wanted to take the long road route. So we had to hurry up and we drove to Tarbert and got the ferry to Woodview (see map here for more close up route)
• And drove to a small town of Kilkee.
• Following day, we had nice breakfast in Kilkee, nice sunny day, drove to Cliffs to Moher (second of the many time probably I will visit this spot).
  
• The last stop was Galway city, which was much much better than I expected. Nice, small town city like feeling. Def. not to miss.

And ah, don't worry about accommodation, there are so many B&B's and non-breakfast places, we never had to book anything, just go to one n spend the night.

I would be posting the pictures slowly on flickr, Have a look here.

Some collage shots:

Limerick n Irish Highways

Fungie, Dingle Peninsula

Drive along Dingle peninsula, Landscape

Flying High on the west most point in Ireland, The Basket Islands

Kilkee, Cliffs of Moher n Galway City

Dublin Metblogs Wants MOAR

Metblogs Recruiting Poster, originally uploaded by seanbonner.

Isn't this the best recruiting poster you have ever seen :), atleast for me. So, I also write/blog/rant/manage for Dublin Metblogs, which is part of the global network of cities "Metroblogging". And Sean (n HQ team) created this awesome recruiting poster; so if you live in Dublin and would like to be part of our team, Check this Come Blog With Us.

Sunset HDR Again

Just playing around with some more RAW images for HDR processing in Photomatix and Photoshop.

I like this with not much color in sky but the you can see the shades of sunset sun in water.


Here's with more sunset colors in sky


And ya, this is the original jpeg shot

Sunset Dancing

Sunset Dancing, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Been a busy week and the upcoming week is quite busy also. Can't leave my blog behind also :)

So here is one of my favourite shot [shot by myself :D] taken on the North-West coast of Ireland in a town called Bundoran.

It was one of most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

Baile Átha Cliath - Dublin - Town of the Hurdled Ford

To North-West

We did another road trip (basically all trips in Ireland are road trips :D) to north-west of Ireland and Northern Ireland for the june bank holiday weekend. I like that in Ireland, pick the car, drive and we are on the other side of the country in few hours. We went to a surfing town called Bundoran (map below), unfortunately I didn't do surfing (next time), but it was still quite good for several other reasons ;) and also for the Rory Gallagher music festival in Ballyshannon and some site-seeing in North Ireland.

Enjoy the pics below :) (esp. the sunset shots, it was one of most beautiful sunsets I saw, just gorgeous)

Myself - Did I?

I think I have never posted a picture of mine (just myself) on this blog. Time for a change. Here is it, my new look,

not really, its not. Proof of how windy Ireland can be. While we were on the west coast, we went for a walk along the cliffs in evening and it was quite windy and when we arrived back, a friend of mine took this shot and we were totally going nuts /laughing about how crazy I look in it :), I like craziness :D

So, do i look crazy enough :D?

Eye on Dublin Dump

Some of the Dublin shots from last few months.

To The West

Over the bank holiday weekend, we decided to head to the west coast of Ireland. After a few plan changes, we decided to head to Galway first (major city on the west coast) and then decide which route to take. Thou' we never actually we made it to Galway City in itself. Here is the route we end we took during the trip.

While half an hour into the drive, we got stuck in traffic and decided to take small country roads than the big motorways and one of the best decisions also :), first no traffic, tiny country gravel roads, cows, sheeps, bins, horses .. great ride as we headed to the west coast with even more beautiful sunny weather (only if it cud be sunny always) and our first stop some tiny castle along the way. And we decided to head to the Cliffs of Moher (more here) or as everyone says "Cliffs of Mohan", I had to mention it :). It got very windy by the time we reached there and as we walked along the cliffs and a bit rainy also but it was very awesome. One of the best, n breathtaking. Some shots:

And we decided to spent the night at a small village "Doolin" near the footsteps of the clips and had a leisurely walk during evening to the cliffs. Doolin - aas very relaxing and the slow pace of life, friendly locals, live music. We took an early morning drive to the cliffs again. It was nice n warm at 7 AM, we were lucky to have such good sunny weather.



We headed to the very west of Ireland, town called Clifden, bypassing Galway city, driving all the scenic coast, limestone hills, small villages, narrow roads with 100 km/h speed limit (not really, we could only do 50 max on those roads, very surprising). It was just great. The weather was once again on our side, bright, warm, sunny. A local in Clifden told us to go up north side, its called the "Sky Road" and it was probably one of the best spots I have visited.



We started driving towards "Westport", city on the upper west side. And while driving there, we came across this spot "small beach n hills on both sides, nice blue water" (i guess the name was Moorneen or am not sure) but it was so nice, we spent like 4 hours there, just relaxing, sleeping, lunch, walking along the beach, frisbee, and finally some of us dared to go for a swim also. Just thinking of it, wants me to go back there :D .. was gorgeous





Some more (i can keep on going):




We headed to "Westport" through the Connemara National Park. I let the pictures talk -





At westport, pics talk again -




It was my first time to west, and i really enjoyed it and need to go there more often. If you visit me, we def. need to do a drive down west or south or north. Its Ireland at its best.

Window to Dublin

Window to Dublin, originally uploaded by Mohan S.

Merry Christmas

So contuning on my last post about xmas parties .. in some sense i am enjoying all of it .. last night we went to see the movie "I am not there", based on Bob Dylan's life n songs; the movie was good, but bit confusing .. they never once mentioned Bob Dylan and sometimes it just felt whether it all makes sense; thou i did enjoy Cate Blanchet's character for bob.

We had some great carving for mexican food after movie, surpringly there aren't that many mexican places to go, the first one we tried to go was a mix of italian and mexican .. am sure they won't be good in any .. how can u mix those two best cuisines .. Anyway we went to next one on George's Street and it ended up being booked for whole evening and we didn't knew of any other place. Following Kathleen's idea, we went n booked a table in a Lebanese Resturant (pics below) called Byblos.. such a full filling meal .. delicious; and we were so stuffed, we didn't vene looked for dessert menu thou we didn got see some belly dancing as dessert, if i might say :D

DSC_0016, originally uploaded by Mohan S.