June 04 –22, 2023

Dublin | Killarney | Dingle | Clare, Ireland

Margit & Christian

After having done a lot of hiking holidays on home soil in the Eastern Alps the last few years, we finally went on our first trip abroad since we came back from our road trip in autumn of 2019. And since we have never been to Ireland it was an ideal start for a comeback. It's perfect for hiking, full of wonderful and friendly people and last but not least it has a huge variety of all sorts of beer! So, we packed our backbags and off we went to Dublin! And we also took Margit's latest gem, her new drone Daisy D., with us!
We decided not to take our tent but instead chose to stay in small guesthouses or with families who also rented out rooms. For the first stage of our trip (taking a train right after arrival in Dublin) we explored Killarney and its eponymous national park in grand weather. Blue skies and a bright shining sun awaited and accompanied us on our hikes. People told us it had been like this for 2-3 weeks and they could not believe they actually have had something like summer for such a long period of time. After that we took a bus to Camp, located on the Dingle peninsula and gateway to the Dinlge Way a multi-day hiking trail, where we hiked two days along a beach, followed by coastal walking and eventually over a beautiful saddle just below the mighty Mount Brandon. After a night's stop in beautiful and vivid Limerick we arrived in Lisdoonvarna, not far from the tourstic but lovely village Doolin, from where we did daily trips to hike the Cliffs of Moher, to take a ferry to bike Inishmore (one of the Aran Islands) and to enjoy a walk through the Burren landscape to end up in lovely Ballyvaughan. Via Galway we returned to Dublin by train, this time to explore it properly having left it immediately upon arrival 2 weeks earlier. And it was a real pleasure experiencing such a terrific city! Beautifully located along the River Liffey with its many friendly and warm people, visually it's a perfect blend of modern architecture and old buildings. And let's not forget  Phoenix Park, Europe's largest city park and a seemingly endless field of green with many herds of free roaming fallow deer. 
After 18 days of green pastures, beautiful white sandy beaches, loads of sheep, modern urban feeling and even more pints of beer we sadly had to leave. The sun and mild temperatures were almost all the time with us, eventhough we experienced a day of fog, a bit of rain and some cloudy days too! We will definitely be back!