On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning, everyone,
Let’s get this week started!
We recently went on a three-month tour of a few places in Europe – Budapest (where we have lodgings with my wife’s father and use as a base camp for travels quite often), Ireland (a month of driving and airbnbs), Denmark and Sweden (public transit all the way, and again airbnbs). Economy travel, as much as travel can be – gained lots of insights into various countries’ grocery stores and did a lot of cooking and lunch-packing.
Ireland is one of my favorite places. The people are warm, friendly, and eager to be helpful. An example: we were on a typical countryside one-lane two-way road, and passed a scene I wanted to photograph. I pulled off to make a U turn, and the car behind me also pulled off – “Are you OK, need any help?” Told him thanks but we were OK. Made the U turn, and a walker on the road signaled me to roll down the window – “Take it slow, I’ll walk ahead and let you know when it’s clear around the bend.” We got back to the scene, and I turned into a driveway on the other side of the road. The home owner came out – “Pull up in here next to my car, you don’t want to stop that near the road”. I explained what we were up to – “That’s fine then, but take care and you might want to be be quick, from the look of the clouds it’s going to be bucketing soon”.
These pics are from Sligo, a cool and quirky town in the north of the Republic. A rainy day stroll.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
I love your travel photos and you stories. Hope to do something similar someday. What a great thing to read with my morning coffee, Thank you!
Sherparick
Thanks for the pictures. Brings back memories of a trip I made to counties Sligo & Mayo in 1981. This was before Ireland as Celtic tiger & was obviously then a poor country compared to U.S. or Germany (where I was then living). It was also the one place where I heard Gaelic spoken as a first language.
John S.
I have always enjoyed visiting Ireland for the same reasons. Due to work, I have spent a lot of time out west in Killarney and on the Dingle peninsula. So much in fact that on a trip last year with a colleague from Dublin, he remarked how unnerving it was that I knew my way around his country (though not his part of it) better than he did.
satby
Wonderful pictures tomtofa, that’s the Ireland outside of Dublin I remember! I also want to do an extended travel around Ireland and Europe, using one location as a base and mostly train and bus travel to see the rest. My nephew and I took a cross country train from Dublin to Galway and it was an enjoyable and comfortable way to get around while being able to enjoy the views.
JPL
Thank you so much for the pictures.
Dorothy A. Winsor
What lovely stories about the Irish!
arrieve
I love these pictures! And your stories really make Ireland come alive. Please share more.
Tata
Interesting raincoats!
mellowjohn
On a rugby tour years ago, we played an early evening game against a team based in Dublin. There was a gorgeous sunset west of the city, a beautiful rainbow out over the Irish Sea, and we were sleeted on the entire game.
sligowoman
Nice pictures, I come from 20 miles south of Sligo town. As a kid it was a big treat to go to Sligo town to shop with my mother and have tea at Lyons ( shop).
Chief Oshkosh
@mellowjohn: Same thing happened to me. Weird. And after losing to various Irish teams across the country for the previous 9 days, we’d actually battled the Dublin team to a tie and were advancing to score and win when the ref called the game for weather. Called a rugby game for weather. In Ireland.
We was robbed! ;)
West of the Rockies
Oh, I’d love to see Ireland! I’m jealous.
Al Z.
I really, really don’t want to see that ear wax ad.
BobS
My wife and I visited Ireland a few years ago, during the Obama presidency- after a few days in Dublin, we rented a car and drove around the island. My wife’s grandfather was from Nenagh, which is just a little more than 10 miles from Moneygall, where Obama’s ancestors are from- pictures of Obama and American flags festooned Nenagh.
The Irish (at least many that we met) seem to have an affection for Americans, and at the time the only way we were aware of crossing from the republic to the north was the currency (we only had Euros)- I hope that doesn’t change with Brexit.
Also, for anyone going, if you visit a pub in the afternoon (which was part of our ritual), sit at the bar. It also helps to ask the person sitting next to you to take your photo- it’s a good way to meet people. I left Ireland with the impression that 50% of the population has visited either New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or San Francisco.
J R in WV
What a great trip, I hope you post pictures from other stops on your months-long tour!
Fine pictures, also too !!!
Kattails
Thanks for the fun post. Absolutely love the wonderful colors of the buildings, which seems to be a “thing” for many places with long winters or a lot of gloomy, rainy weather. Modern architecture tends to suck rather a lot. Would love to visit Ireland, Wales, all the Isles. Take a year and just putter.
John Revolta
Had a good friend in NY who was from Sligo. Best damn flute & whistle player I ever heard.
Nethead Jay
Nice photos, always liked the buildings and people genre. Ireland’s one of the few european countries I haven’t been to, would like to go sometime soon. And as a Scandinavian I’m looking forward to your pictures from my home country of Denmark and Sweden.