“White Door, Dublin” — A white door surrounded by colorful street art, Dublin.
I photographed this doorway on a block in Dublin’s Temple Bar District that features several little shops — eateries, a used clothing store, and so forth. Temple Bar is a busy place and not visually subtle. So I imagine that the bar is pretty high when it comes to attracting the eyeballs of passers-by. As a result, there is eye-catching exterior paint, large and colorful signs, and more.
“River Applecross” — Spring-green trees line the River Applecross, Scotland.
Trees, much less groves or forests, are a bit of a rarity in much of the Scottish Highlands, at least compared to what we might expect in similar mountain country in the Western United States. Much of the highlands landscape is devoid of trees, and when they appear they are scatted in small groups… or part of tree farms. So it was a very pleasant surprise to arrive on the coast near Applecross and see these lush, green trees next to the River Applecross.
“Interior, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin” — Looking down the length of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.
I have recently shared a lot of photographs from Scotland, where we spent almost two weeks in May. But that was not the extent of our trip — in all, we were “on the road” for six weeks, also visiting Ireland and England. Ireland was next on our agenda after we departed Scotland, and we had a bit more than a week there. This time we concentrated on cities, quite a contrast with our rural adventures in Scotland. Our first stop was the marvelous city of Dublin.
“Mountains and Cascade” — A stream cascades down from a mountain valley in far northern Scotland.
Most of our May visit to Scotland consisted of a big loop from Inverness out to the Isle of Skye, north (often on the NC500 route), eastward along the North Sea coast, and then down the eastern coast to return to Inverness. This took us through lots of highlands country, but on this day, as we drove across the north towards John O’Groats, the mountains were receding more and more into the distance. Driving east and looking south (the North Sea was to our left) we saw this spectacular ridge.