These Boots...

...were made for walkin' (channeling Nancy Sinatra there; if you don't know what I'm talking about it, you might be too young to read this blog.  Just kidding.  If you're reading this blog, please don't stop now.)  God bless these boots, for they got me through up to 10 miles a day of walking over and through bogs, the Burren, mountain passes, fields of high grass and/or rain, and estuaries at low tide, with nary a blister, sore ankle or soaked sock.

Ireland is as green, lovely, rainy and windy as they say (note the photo of the sexy, form-fitting, waterproof rain pants that go "swoosh, swoosh, swoosh" as I walked, creating my own sound system; those pants never came off all week!).  But hiking in Ireland is worth the effort and energy (and sound effects).   

And Dublin?  It was full of charm, students, Trinity College, pubs, the Abbey Theatre, Temple Bar, Merrion Square, St. Stephen's Green, history, poetry, architecture, music and the nicest people I've ever encountered in a big city. 

Here are some of my hike's views (and some new friends I made) along the way.

Note the gray skies (and that was when it was clear enough that I could pull the camera out of its Ziploc baggie).  I will admit that I knew very little about Ireland before this trip.  This was the best way I can imagine to have gotten the education I just received.  That, and the fish and chips.

 - and the book "How the Irish Saved Civilization," by Thomas Cahill, which I was reading throughout the trip when I wasn't sitting in a hot bath.  (However, on the flight back, I got totally sucked into the six-hour HBO noir melodrama "Mildred Pierce," and the flight ended a half hour before the end of the movie - argh!  I had to Google search the rest of it - not quite the same thing, if you know what I mean, especially since most of the movie is so unbelievable anyway.)  But, back to Ireland...

It does seem that, even before this - my first ever hiking vacation - a few others have felt this way, about Ireland and about hiking.