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Going to Ireland!
Myiagros
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I won a trip to Dublin and and will be going in October. It's for a week but we are thinking of pushing our return flight back 5-7 days. I have a list of things I would like to do in Ireland that will fill most of the week and then we plan to go over to London once our free hotel is up, after that I'm running out of steam on what we should fit in.
Ireland things
- Game of Thrones tour in Belfast - plan for after our free hotel since it starts at 8am. I know there is a tour from Dublin as well but it doesn't cover anything cool like The Giant's Causeway.
- Falconry - there is a place about 45 minutes from Dublin, or the more expensive option, Ashford Castle
- My wife wants to go horseback riding somewhere, planning for the same day as falconry
- Dublin things - Gaol tour, Guinness Storehouse, museums, there is a theatre festival going on when we are there, etc.
- some other things I have written down elsewhere
England things
- normal sights - Big Ben, National Gallery, Stonehenge, castles, etc.
- and that's about it, I figure 1 day in London, 1 day for Stonehenge
Besides that we might make a day trip to France on the train to the Louvre and Eiffel Tower.
Any other must-see things I should check out?
Ireland things
- Game of Thrones tour in Belfast - plan for after our free hotel since it starts at 8am. I know there is a tour from Dublin as well but it doesn't cover anything cool like The Giant's Causeway.
- Falconry - there is a place about 45 minutes from Dublin, or the more expensive option, Ashford Castle
- My wife wants to go horseback riding somewhere, planning for the same day as falconry
- Dublin things - Gaol tour, Guinness Storehouse, museums, there is a theatre festival going on when we are there, etc.
- some other things I have written down elsewhere
England things
- normal sights - Big Ben, National Gallery, Stonehenge, castles, etc.
- and that's about it, I figure 1 day in London, 1 day for Stonehenge
Besides that we might make a day trip to France on the train to the Louvre and Eiffel Tower.
Any other must-see things I should check out?
Steam: MyiagrosX27Because if you're going to attempt to squeeze that big black monster into your slot you will need to be able to take at least 12 inches or else you're going to have a bad time...
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Stonehenge is a fair bit away from London, yet it doesn't take the whole day to see once you're there. Consider something like Bristol or Bath since you're not too far from them.
The guy I talked to was nearing the end of a two week visit to Holland, Belgium, Germany and Denmark so we talked a bit about what he had experienced and he himself brought up that he wished he had done it differently. He basically said that less is more.
So I'd suggest either skipping France, or perhaps leaving out something else and at least spend a couple of days in France. Allow for time to let experiences sink in, cramming a lot in is sort of like watching the highlights of a football game - only interrupted by having to travel and organize.
I haven't been to Ireland, but I've been to London and Paris. In both places there is a lot to see and by that I mean A LOT. Both cities have some amazing museums and then there is of course all the iconic spots + there is the food and just general city life.
Many of the major tourist sites allows for buying tickets on-line which can save a lot of time.
We enjoyed Bunratty castle more than Blarney. Bunratty felt like a better experience and the mead there was pretty good. I think it's not far from Dublin. They even do a dinner/theater type show in the castle that you could go to if you plan ahead. My wife and I were unaware of it so we didn't get to attend it.
We also spent a night in Dromoland Castle which is a 2-3 hour drive from Dublin. They had horseback riding, falconry, archery, and golf. It's a hotel that used to be a castle and was absolutely gorgeous. Probably my favorite part of the trip outside of the Cliffs of Moher.
The Trinity College Library and the Book of Kells was awesome to see as well while we were there.
My wife and I went for our honeymoon and were only there a week so I'm sure there is plenty we did not see, but those were the highlights to me.
Checked out the Bunratty Banquet and that definitely looks like something we might change around for one of our days.
Unless you have accommodations in Dublin included I would consider renting a car and driving around staying at B&Bs. Dublin and Belfast were cool but the countryside and small towns made longer lasting memories I think.
Check out what it cost to fly. I just did a quick check and found two tickets Dublin->London for $140 CAD and if you book tickets well in advance they are usually cheaper.
Do note though that there are four airports which designate them self as London airports, but really it is only City and Heathrow that are so, the two others not so much and especially Luton I recommend avoiding like the plague. Luton is chaos, under construction and has been scored as the fifth worst airport in the World(It helps a little if you have a lounge card, but that is only for departures).
whoa whoa hang on
What you see on a map is not really the expected travel time. There is no day trip around Ireland, really... Dublin --> Galway can take anything from 3-5 hours or longer depending on traffic and whether farmers are driving sheep or whatever along the main roads, and you still have to come back. It's easy to spend 8 hours driving just to do an hour of sightseeing.
Each region is really the guts of a day. Think about it like that... if you decide to drive from Dublin to kiss the blarney stone (which is the 2nd neatest thing on those grounds - there's an ancient bloodstained druid altar there, it's way cooler) you're not going to make it to Claire and see the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher in the same day. Might as well stay somewhere nearby and have a few pints, see the cliffs the next morning, then head on to Galway area and drive back to Dublin that night.
Now, granted I haven't been there since 2005, but I feel like they probably haven't managed to upgrade their entire road infrastructure to a modern one in the last decade... it simply takes forever to get anywhere in Ireland.
edit: I'm told that my mother in law was there last year and it's basically identical so, yeah. Driving efficiently around Ireland is not a thing.
I agree with spool on this also. My wife and I rented a car and drove ourselves. We tried to take a shorter route using Google Maps to cut the Ring of Kerry in half basically. We ended up on some one lane mountain road with her yelling OH SHIT for about 3 hours while holding onto the emergency break. Our "detour" that should've saved us 30-45 minutes according to Google Maps added on about 3 hours of drive time.
It's an awesome story now, but I literally thought we were an angry sheep away from being splattered off the side of a mountain at the time.