End (Gaelic): the End

The Opel has won. The two wheels have only traveled on the back seat until Monday evening, and now they are waiting neatly packed in a bicycle box in the storage room of the Cork International Hotel. The hotel stored the boxes for three weeks along with our backpacks. Probably, those items were often in the way, judging by how it looked in the storage room. We already received an email hinting that we would get a room upgrade, ohhh la la, but to what? A huge suite with 3 rooms. Probably as a thank you for finally clearing out the boxes. After the bikes were packed (what a hassle, padding everything, disassembling, securing and packing well), we had dinner on our hotel terrace - sitting on the floor. There probably weren't enough chairs, or with the constant rain, it wasn't necessary anyway. We talked about Ireland over the last three weeks, whether there would have been an alternative to the Opel - no, there wouldn't have been! All options didn’t work out. The feeling of having given up somehow fights against oneself internally. We didn't give up, we just stopped for the sake of our health. During the 3 weeks, we found ourselves in difficult situations multiple times and had to hold our breath because it was very tight on the road. Many Irish people in our accommodations told us that they would never bike in their lives due to the aggressive driving of their fellow humans. We also saw relatively few, if any, cyclists. Now we understand the reason. The Irish, not all, drive cars as if they are constantly being chased. After we were almost shoved into a hedge by a bus last Thursday, that was probably what prompted us to trade the bike for the car. The driving style of the Irish was not different and for us (Anja was driving), also not really relaxing with the narrow roads, but at least it was dry. So the last three days involved beach hikes, swimming in 15-degree water temperature (which requires some overcoming), lots of food, charming little towns with much traffic, and not much rain, and of course exciting, fast car rides ;) to beaches with one-lane roads having oncoming traffic and blackberry hedges. But we survived that, and so did the car. From Limerick, we drove to the East Coast, Arklow, where we slept in a forest cottage and ate in the evening at the harbor. We then headed south to Tramore, a seemingly nice small town at first, but at the harbor, it turned into a mini Las Vegas with gambling halls and not-so-appealing atmosphere. Our last imagined Irish evening with a nice pub and Irish music fell victim to a pasta salad with falafel and beetroot salad from the supermarket on a bench between noisy cars, music from the bumper cars. At least it didn't rain, and we had a view of the sea. The B&B was very nice and Irish, and the two retirees who ran it talked with us for a long time.
On Monday, we drove along the Copper Road towards Cork. Copper Road, because this area experienced a kind of copper rush in the mid-18th century. The coast reconciled us a little with Ireland as a farewell, green hills, cliffs, beautiful little beaches. We jumped into the cool ocean once more before it got hot again on the way to Cork.
Now we are waiting to check-in at Cork Airport, and to receive our bikes back in one piece in Zurich... we just saw them, they drove in front of the EDELWEISS flight.... No Peter, don’t look at how they handle the boxes.... By the way, the sun is shining from an almost blue sky...
We will all see each other again in Zurich, Bern, wherever on this big, beautiful, colorful world.... Take care!!!

Some more facts about our bike tour:
Total kilometers: 1,229
Elevation: 14,712
Breakdowns: luckily none, except for a few scrapes from falling