Road trip through the UK and Ireland

Including South England, Wales, Belfast, High Lands, Edinburgh and some more sweet places.

In the summer of 2024 we fled the hot temperatures to our beautiful temperate “neighboring” islands and enjoyed a relaxed 15-22 degrees in August! We started at the small festival OBOA (really far east) and then drove through Germany, Netherlands, Belgium to catch the ferry to Dover in Calais, France.

Once we arrived in the south of England, I had to get used to driving on the left, which wasn't easy in rush hour traffic with what felt like thousands of traffic circles. But the weather was perfect with 25 degrees and sunshine! After a first night on the island, we went to see Stonehenge and drove straight to the Arctangent Festival, what a great festival!

After four days at the festival we finally went on our “real” vacation! Off to Wales and soon afterwards the ferry to southern Ireland. Through beautiful landscapes and cute little towns, Cork and Limerick were the first major cities, where unfortunately I didn't take any photos... We continued through beautiful countryside to Northern Ireland through an impressive national park with immense wind towards Belfast! After a nice evening in a pub we went on to Scotland by ferry.

Wow! After driving into the countryside in Cairnryan and heading north on the road between the sea and the mountains, all you can think is wow! Unfortunately no photos of it either... Well, let's continue on to Glasgow and stroll around a bit before heading into the Highlands. The Highlands are simply stunning with their mountains, gorges and lochs! The whole time, the damp, misty weather creates a wonderful mystical atmosphere, which is enhanced by the breathtaking flora. We rounded off our trip to Scotland with a lovely evening in a pub in Edingburgh with 2 great live concerts. We will definitely be back here again!

The last stop is York, Oxford, the Black Sabbath Watermill and Watership Down! York is a beautiful old English city with even old Roman buildings that you can just stroll through for hours! Especially at night, when the otherwise very touristy streets are quiet and only 1 or 2 pubs are still open, it is particularly beautiful! Unfortunately, we only had a few hours for Oxford, but we also realized that we had to come back here again! What an amazing campus area! A short detour to the Mapledurham Watermill where the first Black Sabbath album cover was made to recreate the photo, unfortunately it didn't quite work out. Property and all that. Well, it turned out to be a photo over the fence. The quasi last stop before the mainland, small hiking tour and last time sleeping on the island, was directly at Watership Down. The place where the rabbits from Richard Adams' book of the same name find their home. If you have read the book, this place is very magical, as you can really imagine the story here! So here is a little Elil in the last photos.

This road trip was incredible again! Many thanks to my partner Mina, who takes on such trips with me, covering 5600 km in 3 weeks! It's always great!