I live in Rathfarnham Village, in South Dublin, Ireland. The Village, 5Km (3 miles) from the city centre was absorbed by the city in the early 1900’s and thankfully  bypassed in the 1980’s, which left the integrity of the old village intact with a pleasant main street and the usual local village shops and restaurants.  It sits at the foothill of the Dublin Mountains (5k)  and “The Wicklow Way”, a 127km (80mile) heritage walk through a national park and across some of the most spectacular scenery found anywhere on the planet

Rathfarnham developed as the service village for Rathfarnham Castle which was built by the Normans around 1199 (first mention in books) to keep the mountainy men from sacking the city so it has been around for a long time

I live in an enclave of 18 town houses with a small 3 story 18 apartments block behind the village and beside The Owendoher  River.  Our complex is called Rathfarnham Mill as it is built on the site of an old Paper Mill driven by this river. There were numerous Mills in the area over the millennia

Behind my house are the Dodder River and Bushy Park, a 445 hectare (1100 acre) recreational and forest park with lots of the kind of wildlife we find existing close to urban populations. The Dodder River (60m/yds from my house) is well stocked with trout which can be caught for dinner on a pleasant summer evening.  So, generally a very pleasant place to live, city life with plenty of interaction with nature.

For pleasure I ride a Harley Davison and in the last 15 years I have travelled 112,000km (70,000 miles) taking in the wonderful wide open spaces of North America, South Africa, France Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. I have spent many wonderful times riding around Yorkshire and the spectacular highlands of Scotland. Too many wonderful places to pick a picture from. The beauty of riding a motorcycle is that, when you are on the road, you are in nature, not just driving through it.

So looking at the above, you would think that I would have to choose my favourite place from all this natural beauty?  In that you would be wrong. My favourite places are Downtown Dublin on Saturday afternoon, Michigan Ave Chicago, in Spring or Autumn and Fifth Ave, NY anytime.

I love standing in front of a large building thinking about the engineering. When hundreds of people turn on a tap, they get water, when they hit the light switch, they get light, the building provides them seamlessly with everything and the real beauty of good building is that the occupants don’t even notice.

And when that’s done, if in Dublin, there is nothing like a pint of Guinness over a good book or an eclectic conversation with a like minded city boy in one of Dublin’s famous watering holes.