Deciding on the ONE photo from a WEEK long trip for the LAST post of the year was tough! But, here it is (finally): a canal /city shot from Burges, Belgium. It's hard to say if this is really my favorite, but it's definitely one of them. And, Bruges was probably my favorite city from our Belgium tour, so there you go.
My visit back home involved an unexpected side trip to Charleston, SC. I got the opportunity to go there and help out with the holiday fashion show at TJ Formal's Charleston store. After we wrapped up the event we even got to spend a few hours on Folly Beach. A nice way to take advantage of the warm, sunny, southern winter!
On one last adventure with my visitors, we took a trip to the Wicklow Mountains. One of our most scenic stops was here, overlooking Lough Tay or Guinness Lake. The wind was incredible, but I managed to hold it steady to get this panoramic shot. Fun fact: they added the white sand beach to look like foam on a pint of Guinness!
I was excited to have our first visitors this week! At the top of their must-see list was the Blarney Castle. I was happy to have a reason to travel there, so we hopped on a train to Cork and took a side trip to Blarney to tour the castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. We had really beautiful weather - blue skies and sunshine - but this photo with a more gritty, gray feel turned out to be one of my favorites.
We had an unexpected get-a-way to Galway this weekend! Here's one of my favorite shots of the abandoned boats in the docks and a rainbow row of houses just off the main pedestrian streets of the town.
... The first stop on our first Ireland road trip was to the Rock of Cashel and the second was the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast. One great example of historic architecture, the other stunning scenery! Here's just one of the many photos from the trip: the Cliffs of Moher from an evening boat cruise.
We went on another great day trip this weekend. This time on a tour through Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey, and Killiney. Dún Laoghaire was a beautiful seaside town, we took a tour of a castle in Dalkey and had a great walk to Killiney including this amazing view.
For the 3rd weekend in a row, we set off on a day trip, this time to Bray. It's a cute seaside town just down the coast from Dublin. We took a hike up the cliffs and got these amazing views all the way up!
...to Howth for a look around and a walk up the cliffs. We had perfect timing for our walk, with the sun out and just starting to get lower for some really pretty light. And, what an amazing view of Howth's coast and Ireland's Eye Island in the distance!
Light Framed 