At the beginning of January I left Dublin, closing one of the most interesting and eventful chapters of my life. On the day I left the city, I woke up early to finish up all the paperwork and all the tasks I had to do before I left Ireland. When I was bringing some clothes to charity, I was welcomed by this beautiful sunrise with amazing colors and a bird passing by. I will always have some really good memories about my time in Éire.

One of my favorite plans when I visit a new city is to go as high as I can to get a panoramic view of the place. When I visited Nice back in January I read that the Colline du Chateau overlooking the Baie des Anges offered an amazing view of the city. So I climbed all the stairs and after a good walk (later on I found there was an elevator, but never mind) I was rewarded with an amazing view of the old town, the bay and the sea.

I was in Heidelberg 4 years ago, but last weekend I had the opportunity to go back and climb to the castle where I had this amazing view of the city. It was quite an exercise to climb the stairs to go to the top, but once you are there, you feel it has been totally worth it.

I visited Belfast for a second time last year (2012) and this time I did the "Black Taxi Tour" and it was very interesting. The driver was part of the Catholic community and he drove me through both the loyalist Protestant areas (i.e., Shankill Road) and the Nationalist enclaves (Falls Road and Bombay Street). One of the most surprising parts of the tour was to pass by the "Peace Lines". I had no clue Belfast had built those walls during the troubles to separate Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods. In this picture you can see one of those walls along Cupar Way in Belfast.

In September last year, K. came to Dublin to visit me, and we rented a car, headed down to the southwest of Ireland and visited the famous Ring of Kerry. I had heard before that this area was one of the most beautiful parts of the country, and the people were right; the landscapes were astounding! When we were going around the ring, we stopped in this spot where I was able to take this nice picture that shows just a glimpse of how nice the area is.

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