Ireland & London

Aer Lingus from Boston to Shannon, starting in the west of Ireland. The Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis, then out to the Cliffs of Moher and through the Burren. Ireland’s west coast is raw and beautiful in a way that photographs can’t capture.

London was next — and this time I stayed at the Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard. Walking up to a hotel that occupies floors of the tallest building in Western Europe felt absurd and wonderful. The views from the room were cinematic.

Then Dublin for the finish. Clontarf Castle Hotel, the Fleet Street Hotel in Temple Bar. Pubs, live music, the kind of conversations you only have with strangers in Irish bars. Dublin felt like home in a way that made my Irish-American heritage feel less abstract.