When we lived in the U.S., we felt like Ireland was so far away, small, and difficult to get to. Because of that, it never made it on our vacation list. Now that we live in Porto and a direct flight to Dublin is affordable and takes less than two hours, we decided to hop over and drive up the Wild Atlantic Way. The driving experience was harrowing. We had no trouble switching to the left side of the road, but the extremely narrow lanes with rock walls and no shoulders were nerve-racking. We got very good at watching for small areas where you can pull over to give the oncoming car an important extra few millimeters to creep by. There were so many big tractors on the road — making hay while the sun shines. Also lots of sheep and some cows think they own the road. We had a tire blow-out on day two and, thereafter, choose to drive for the remaining two weeks at about half the posted speed limit. Still and all, it was a great trip. The natural beauty is jaw-dropping with a big show of Spring flowers,  and the people are charming. We had two unheard-of weeks of ideal temperatures and no rain. The sun was so harsh for most of the long days that getting decent photos was a real challenge, but I still snapped a bizillion pics on our 2082 kilometer road trip.