Here’s my trip report from our fantastic Ireland vacation. I’d like to go ahead and say that it didn’t rain ONCE when we were there. Amazing. It actually started raining when we were boarding the plane in Shannon to come home. It was just me and my husband Matt, and everything worked out beautifully thanks to lots of advance planning (and thanks to all those on the forum!) Here’s an outline of where we stayed:

Days 1&2 – Dublin
Days 3&4 – Kilkenny
Days 5&6 – Killarney
Day 7 – Dingle
Day 8 – Bunratty
Flew home on Day 9

Flight – we flew Continental from Raleigh/Durham to Newark; Newark to Dublin, and then Continental back from Shannon to Newark; Newark to Raleigh. Didn’t have any problems with any of the flights. We thought it was interesting that the average age on the Ireland flights was probably 70 (we are 28.) We opted not to check any bags on the way to Ireland just to avoid any hassles with possible lost baggage (I know I sound paranoid, but my bags have been lost before.)

Day 1
We arrived in Dublin at 7 am after our overnight flight. We easily took the Aircoach to Trinity College and dropped off our luggage (we stayed in the dorms at Trinity College for 2 nights.) We then had 6 hours to kill before check-in. Not much is open at 8 am, or even 9 am, for that matter. We walked around St. Stephen’s green, had some coffee, and then headed for St. Michan’s church. We got there when it opened and were able to do the crypt tour where you touch the 800 year-old mummified body. I know it’s not for everyone, but we really enjoyed it. We walked back along the river and through Temple Bar area, and then got back to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. Really interesting exhibit; we enjoyed it. After that, we were finally able to check in. Our dorm room was cute and modern; we had to share bathroom facilities with our suitemates but that was never an issue (we are also super-easy to please, btw.) Jet lag was hitting us hard; we took a long nap, then got up and wandered back to Temple Bar for some food. We opted to sit outside at one of the patio restaurants so we could people-watch. There were definitely lots of interesting people to watch, that’s for sure. Lots of British people in town for hen and stag parties (it was a Saturday, after all.) The table next to us consisted of guys on a stag weekend who were making the groom-to-be do all sorts of ridiculous things and were videotaping him. It was definitely entertaining. We had some beers at a huge pub and then turned in for the night.

Day 2
Full day in Dublin. We had originally planned to do the hop on-hop off tour bus, but well, we’re cheap, and if there’s anything we can do well, it’s walk. I actually lost weight in Ireland (first time that’s ever happened to me in Europe; usually it’s the other way around) because of a combination of the enormous amount of walking we did and the super-expensive food (we ended up sharing entrees most of the time or just eating soup. Again, we’re cheap. I was pretty blown away by the food prices in the whole country.) So we laughed in the face of our guide book when it said we shouldn’t walk to Kilmainham Gaol. So we walked…and walked…and walked. But it was great; we got to see so much of the city. We stopped by Dublin Castle and several churches on our way. Kilmainham Gaol was fantastic – the guided tour was so informative, and we learned a lot about Irish history. (Side note – I planned out every stop we would be making on this trip and had added up entrance fees ahead of time, so I knew it made sense to purchase Heritage Cards for both of us. This was a huge money-saver – we ended up saving about $60 just by buying these passes. The easiest way to get them is to buy them at the first Heritage stop you go to. For us, that was the Gaol.) After the Gaol we walked to the Guinness Storehouse. There were a ton of people here, and the whole thing is a little more Disney-fied than I had expected, but it was still very enjoyable. My husband is a homebrewer, so the whole thing was very interesting to him. We liked getting our “free” pint at the tasting room on the top floor and looking out at the city, even if Dublin doesn’t have a particularly fascinating skyline. We left the Storehouse at about 3 pm and stopped at a Mexican place for a burrito. Then we headed to the National Museum of Ireland (Archeology.) It’s not a large museum, but we did the guided tour to learn about the relics and artifacts they have from thousands of years ago. We stayed until they kicked us out at 5 pm. We went back to our room and read our respective books (we are huge readers) and enjoyed massaging our tired feet before we set out for dinner. We ate at a Chinese place, walked around some more, and then retired early to drink a bottle of wine in our room (we are also big drinkers.) Next day – leaving Dublin and the adventures that naturally go along with driving in Ireland.

Will post more very soon...

What fun! Nice to hear you lost weight on the "Irish Diet". Tell us more.

Good beginning, lotus! Looking forward to more . . .

LotusBlossom:

Can you share what you hoped to spend on meals each day and what actual costs were?

Interesting to read about how others travel. Thanks for sharing.

Sandy

Day 3
We checked out of Trinity College and walked right across the street (so convenient) to the Dan Dooley city centre office. There was no one there but us, and it was super-easy to pick up our car. With Dan Dooley you pay in advance, so we had already worked out the costs with them months beforehand – makes for a very nice experience when you just want to pick up the car and go. We had problems with other car rental places when we were researching prices because they would not give us the option to purchase Super CDW because we were under 30. No such problems with Dan Dooley; I would definitely rent from them again if I return to Ireland.

So, as navigator, I had a several road maps plus printed directions to everywhere we intended to go using AA Roadwatch. I was glad I had both – sometimes the written directions were what pulled me through (they are so detailed) and sometimes we really just needed to know the road names, so the map was easier. And yes, we made some wrong turns, but we always worked it out and got where we needed to go. I thought Ireland was surprisingly well-signposted (based on what I had previously read) and because every single major road is on the map, I was easily able to figure out where we were. It was also surprising that driving on the left wasn’t the biggest issue with driving in Ireland. The biggest challenge was definitely the super-windy, sharp turns on teeny-tiny roads with 10-foot high hedges on either side of you, no shoulder, and no visibility. Unlike other tourists, my husband sees the 100 kph speed limit and embraces it. We flew down these roads like locals. We pretty much always arrived right when AA Roadwatch said we would (except when we happened to be behind a giant truck or something like that.) I’d like to tell you that I sat back, relaxed, and took this driving experience with ease, but that wouldn’t really be true. I did get more accustomed to it as the week went by, and we never had any problems or issues with the car – never even scraped up against any hedges. I was very, VERY glad my husband drove the whole time (he LOVED driving in Ireland, by the way.) Also, we got a very small car, and I was extremely glad that we did.

Driving out of Dublin was a little stressful, but we made it out after just one wrong turn. We arrived at Powerscourt Estate at 10:45 and proceeded to tour the gardens. Now we are going to sound sort of snotty here, but at home we live very close to the Biltmore Estate, so I think we were a little spoiled. Powerscourt was nice, and the weather was gorgeous, and it was fun walking through the grounds. We ate lunch (soup for each of us) in the café on the terrace (we try to eat outside whenever possible) and then headed on to Glendalough.

We both really enjoyed Glendalough. We love hiking (you know we love walking!) and nature, and this place was just gorgeous. There were lots of well-signposted trails you could choose from of varying lengths. I could see why St. Kevin chose to live in the woods here between two lakes – he really couldn’t have picked a prettier spot. The ruins set against the lake were just breathtaking.

Then we drove on to our final destination of the day – Kilkenny. We stayed at Alcantra B&B and enjoyed it immensely. We checked in, dropped off our stuff and the car, and then walked into town. We had dinner at Marble City Bar – very good food for what you are paying (about 12 euro per entrée) – we each got an entrée because Matt wanted to “splurge” after just eating soup for lunch (this was one of the last times we each got separate entrees.) Then we had our best traditional music night of the whole trip. On recommendation of Brigid from our B&B, we went to Cleere’s pub (only has trad music on Monday nights – yay for us!) It was an amazingly good time – there were so many locals, and they would get up and sing a solo for the musicians – everyone seemed to know each other. We had a blast. We tried to replicate that experience many times after that day, but we never really could; most other places were too full of tourists or the magicians lacked the magic of the ones at Cleere’s. So if you’re in Kilkenny on a Monday, go! It was awesome.

Day 4
We had already walked around Kilkenny pretty extensively the previous evening, and our priority for the morning was Kilkenny Castle. After an awesome breakfast (who knew scrambled eggs and smoked salmon went so well together?) we walked straight to the castle. We got into the first tour of the morning. We both love castles, and this one was of course huge and amazing; we enjoyed the tour and took lots of pictures of the grounds. Then we walked back to our B&B, picked up the car, and drove south to visit the attractions outside of Kilkenny city itself. First, we hit the town of Kells to visit the Kells Priory. This was not as easy as it sounds. If you follow the signs in Kells for the priory, you get to a far corner of the priory grounds (you can see it in the distance) with no accessible entrance – in fact it is quite locked up and gated. It was sort of like solving a puzzle – at this location, there was a crude map on a sign that showed the “entrance” to be near an intersection we passed about three streets ago. So back in our car we went; we figured out the road that they meant, but we never could find an entrance. My guide book said something about it being near a mill, so when we saw a mill, we stopped. No entrance, but there was a random guy who seemed to be working in the mill. He told us to go down the next gravel road up the hill. SO sketchy! But that worked; if you drive down this random driveway-looking thing, there is a tiny sign at the end that says “Priory Entrance” (the priory itself is still not visible.) Then we walked down a path by a stream, and lo and behold, there was the priory! We were the only people there; it was awesome. It was just us and the 100 giant birds. There are so many ruins in Ireland; some have visitor centers, guided tours, brochures, etc. It was fun for us to juxtaposition ruins like that with ruins like Kells Priory, which you can just explore on your own (although, of course, we had no idea what any of the ruins were.) We really enjoyed climbing over everything and having fun with it.

Next we made our way to Jerpoint Abbey. Well, first we drove past it and had lunch in a pub in Thomastown (cheapest pub food we ever found; I guess Thomastown is not a high priority tourist destination.) I had soup and Matt had a sandwich; $17. We drove back to Jerpoint Abbey, which was a ruin with the whole visitors center/guided tour thing going on, and we took the guided tour. It was just us and our tour guide, and she was AWESOME. She gave probably the most interesting, informative tour of our trip; we were both hanging on everything she was saying. We asked her why Jerpoint Abbey had the visitors center/guided tour thing and Kells Priory was right down the road, larger, and completely deserted. She told us that the government had to pick and choose which ruins to focus on, because there are so many, and because Jerpoint Abbey has elaborate figure carvings, it won. The carvings were really interesting; she explained what all of them meant.

We drove on to Inistioge and walked around. It was a cute town; not sure what I was expecting, but for me it didn’t particularly stand out against all the other super-cute towns. Then we headed back to Kilkenny; we read our books in the common room for awhile and chatted with other guests over our tea and cookies (yum) and then headed out for dinner. We ate french fries and chicken nuggets in a cheaper pub; not what I usually eat, but again, we’re cheap. We went to watch trad music at Kyteler’s Pub, which had a solo artist singing ballads. It was fine; we didn’t stay that long.

Next up – leaving Kilkenny and heading west…

Thanks for reading, everyone! I will post more soon...

SandyBrit - we didn't really have a budget for food, we were just surprised at how the prices were so much higher than in the US. All the restaurants had menus posted in their windows, and trying to find a place to eat at night sometimes took awhile. For the average restaurant (Italian, Chinese, etc) the cheapest dinner price tended to be 12 euro. And that's the cheapest; most entrees run 13-17 euro. One or two nights of that is fine, but if it's an every night thing (plus lunch was rarely under $20) then it starts to add up. The "fancy" restaurants had entrees starting at 25 euro. At home, we don't even pay that much if it's our anniversary!

Hope that helps!

I'm enjoying your report. We have also just returned from Ireland, and had the same wonderful weather. We were so lucky.

Probably our biggest disappointment of the trip was not hearing great Irish music. We asked at the B&s, walked the streets, went looking from pub to pub, but have actually heard better music right here at Flaherty's Pub in Cleveland. We never once heard someone play the fiddle. You were so lucky to be in Kilkenny on Monday evening.

We enjoyed our dinners in Ireland but also found them to be very expensive. The early bird special or prix fixe meal was 25-30euros pp without wine.

Sometimes we would order soup and and an appetizer, or one person got the full meal and the other just the entree--the entreee always seemed to come with sides even when we didn't order the sides--and always potatoes. We could have eaten a bit more inexpensively. Many of the pubs have a restaurant and a pub that both serve food. To save money, eat in the pub side.

LotusBlossom:

Thanks for explaining about the cost of meals, helpful information. Those b&b full breakfast help as well.

It is nice to hear that your DH enjoyed the driving and that you zipped around like locals - well done.

Sandy

LotusBlossom,

Thanks for posting your report, I'm enjoying it.

Joan

Am enjoying your report. I think it's important that a forum likes this shows how a variety of travellers budget, eat, etc. Look forward to reading more. (P.S. My husband also loves driving in Ireland.)

Haha - Now that I'm re-reading my posts I'm realizing how cheap I sound! I just want to stress that for us, what's important is being in the country, touring the ruins, the historical attractions, and experiencing the culture and the people. Food just isn't that important to us, and since we are young and not rolling in cash, we have to cut something if we want to go on trips like this!

Day 5
We tried to leave early for our long day of driving. My master plan consisted of us arriving in Killarney around 6ish while making three stops along the way: Rock of Cashel, Cahir Castle, and Blarney Castle. I had no idea if this was going to work out or not, but unbelievably, it did, and we arrived at our B&B at 6:05 (I must be good at this planning stuff!)

First we stopped at the Rock of Cashel; wow, it looks so impressive from the road as you are driving towards it! We had a little trouble finding the entrance, which seems silly since it is so big and is up on a hill that towers over the town. We took the guided tour. Then we moved on down the road to Cahir. At Cahir Castle we wandered around without a tour and had fun climbing over all the perilous ruins with no guardrails. It’s always so funny to me how that would never happen in the US; insurance companies would be all over it. We wandered around Cahir town afterwards and were able to get cheap paninis at this quick-mart-type place, which we ate in the grounds behind the castle.

Then it was on to Blarney! I was nervous about driving around Cork, but we found our way to Blarney with no wrong turns. I guess I had pretty low expectations for Blarney Castle ahead of time, since it encompasses the Blarney Stone, which is a very touristy thing to see, and very touristy things tend to be over-hyped. So I was definitely pleasantly surprised when I found a VERY tall castle sitting on gorgeous green lawns in a forest setting – it’s so much easier to picture castles back when they were being lived in if the castle is not right up on a large road (Cahir Castle was RIGHT next to a very busy street.) I was also surprised that is not a quick and easy thing to ascend Blarney Castle to kiss the stone. There were many older tourists sitting at the base of the castle who were never going to go up. The spiral staircase was extremely narrow, and the stairs were very worn; almost sloping in some places. They have a thick rope hanging down, and at parts of the climb you almost need to rappel and pull yourself up with the rope. It made for a fun adventure. So we kissed the stone, which was fun and more daunting than I expected thanks to the giant chasm they make you lower yourself into. I didn’t realize we would be so high above the ground! We walked around the grounds and the interior of the castle, and then headed back to our car and to Killarney.

We arrived at Killarney and checked into the Ross Castle Lodge. I absolutely LOVED this place; I could have stayed forever. The whole place was so gorgeous, our bed was so comfy, and Rosaleen and Denis were pretty much the nicest people I’ve ever met. The only drawback was that it was a hike to Killarney town, but all the other amazing things about this place more than made up for the walk (plus, we are always up for a good walk) and I would most definitely stay here again if I was ever back in Killarney. After we ditched our car, we walked through Killarney National Park into town to grab a pizza at a super-cute Italian place. We stopped by an internet café afterwards (I am a total internet addict; it was hard logging on just twice the whole week), grabbed some candy, and then skipped pub music and walked back to the B&B to drink some wine in our room and watch Irish news – we were exhausted from our long driving day.

Day 6
This was our day to cover the Killarney area attractions. After breakfast we walked to Ross Castle, which, as the name of our B&B indicates, was extremely close by. We enjoyed the guided tour (let’s be honest, we enjoy every guided tour) and learned a lot in the process. Then we took off on one of the trails that Denis had recommended through Killarney National Park – there were gorgeous views of the lakes, and it was all very lovely. We walked for about an hour or so. We headed back to our B&B, picked up our car, and drove to the Muckross House. We ate (soup again) at the cafeteria on the grounds, and then took the guided tour of the house. It was an interesting change of pace since the house is so much newer (1800s) than everything else we had been touring. I really enjoyed the expensive furnishings and the elaborate system for summoning the servants – reminded me of the Biltmore House. Afterwards we walked over to traditional farms. I’ll be honest here, we were not totally impressed with the farms; we felt there was a pretty poor walking-to-interesting-content-ratio, if that makes sense. The people at our B&B that morning were raving about how great it was, and I think part of it was because they got to watch the artisans and carpenters work, and they watched milk being skimmed, etc…I think maybe we just went at the wrong time, because there was no one around in any of the shop buildings when we were there. Afterwards we went to the Muckross Abbey, which seems to be undergoing extensive restorations, but was still fun to see. We got back to the car and drove to Torc Waterfall, which was very nice.

Then we headed back to our B&B for some wine and reading on the patio in the gardens. Sigh…just writing that sentence makes me wish I was back there right now. Then we walked to town, ate a late dinner at a Chinese place, and then pub-hopped while we looked for really good traditional music. At the last place we stopped, we sat at a table with the most entertaining couple – the woman was from London and the man was from Sydney (they preferred to live in their separate countries and visit each other and take trips together) – they were so much fun to talk to. Then we headed back for our last night in that wonderful bed; next stop – Dingle!

I don't think you sound cheap about your eating habits; you are wise to know what you want and how to prioritize.

I too prefer to eat on the cheap; I also like being able to picnic in a park or beside the road somewhere. Also saves time on many days.

thanks for your interesting report; keep it coming.

Loving the report so far, especially as I have done many of the things you are doing - including staying at Alcantra, and eating at Marble City, listening to music at Kytelers We had a trad band named Caladh which was great. The man has an incredible singing voice. (www.caladh.com)

I'm looking forward to the rest of your trip report.

Here's the last of it!

Day 7
We headed north for Dingle, or I guess technically, An Daingean, (I totally love how since the government isn’t allowed to write “Dingle” on street signs, someone else spray-painted all the signs so that they do say “Dingle.” So hilarious.) We were checking into our B&B at 1 pm, and since it took us pretty much no time to get to the peninsula, we made lots of scenic stops along the way (many, many pictures were taken.) Whenever there was some sort of area to pull over, we pulled over. Right before we got to Inch Beach, we had an awful incident where I was petting and playing with this kitten, and as it walked away from me when we were getting ready to leave it immediately got run over by a car – right in front of me. It was horribly traumatizing; we sat on Inch Beach for awhile while I tried to get over it.

After awhile I pulled myself together and we moved on further down the peninsula. I had done some internet searches for random castle ruins – they just seem so romantic when they are set against the sea – anyway, I had found Minard Castle, and I was determined that we find it since it was on our way. We followed the signs down a really sketchy, super-steep one-lane road, and then lo and behold, there was the most beautiful place I had ever seen. It was just absolutely breathtaking, with the giant round rocks, the bay, the sand, the green cliffs, and the castle. We stayed there for a very long time just soaking it all in (and taking about a million pictures.) There’s not much left to Minard Castle, and you can’t climb on it, but the setting was just indescribable.

We made ourselves move on, and we headed into Dingle town. We were still a little early, so we parked and walked around the town. We grabbed a sandwich in a pub, then headed over to our B&B, Emlagh Lodge. Wow, talk about a good view. The B&B itself looked like it was out of a postcard, sitting right on the bay. I don’t think I’ve ever had a hotel room with a water view from my window, so I was pretty excited. We dropped off our bags, then took off for the Slea Head drive around the tip of Dingle Peninsula. We stopped A LOT, so the drive took pretty much the whole afternoon. There were just so many gorgeous places to pull over, take pictures, and walk around. We saw a lot of the same people at different stops along the way making the same loop that we were. We walked around the beehive huts, went to the Blasket Island Center (which wasn’t all that exciting, in my opinion) and went to the Gallarus Oratory. We couldn’t believe how the Gallarus Oratory could be as old as it was and still be waterproof. The rest of the afternoon was spent ooohing and aahhing over all the dramatic cliff/ocean scenery, and we also did a fair bit of hiking around.

We made it back to our B&B at around dinnertime, so we dropped off the car and then made the short walk into town. It seemed that finding a reasonable place to eat dinner was difficult tonight, or maybe we were just cranky from all the expensive food. Right when we were deciding on a place, I turned around and Matt had his shirt off in the middle of the street. A bee had flown down his shirt and stung him; when he was a little kid he used to be allergic. Not deathly allergic, but enough to go to the hospital allergic. So even though he had been stung once as an adult and didn’t have a reaction, we were still completely on edge watching to see if his shoulder would swell. Thankfully, it didn’t, but it was still a sketchy way to end our day. We ate at the restaurant of the Dingle Bay Hotel – I had an appetizer as my meal (baked goat cheese and peppers on bruschetta – it was amazing.) We walked around that night and then enjoyed some trad music at a place with an Irish name that I can’t remember. The guy on the accordion was amazing; I’ve never seen someone’s fingers move that quickly.

Day 8
We left Dingle fairly early for our super-long day of driving. We headed out of the peninsula using the northern route so we could drive through the Connor Pass. We loved all the random lakes set amongst the mountains. We even pulled over (when we saw other cars pulled over) and hiked up to one of the lakes. Very gorgeous scenery, if somewhat nerve-wracking driving. We made it through Tralee with only one wrong turn, then we headed north to try to find another of my random internet castles, Carrigafoyle Castle. The road there was very small and in the middle of nowhere, but there were signs, and so we found it! I loved climbing to the top of this one – I didn’t realize it would be so tall. It was very cool being at a deserted castle on an estuary of the Shannon River. Then we drove on to the car ferry at Tarbert and drove our car on it right before they closed it up to pull away. Good timing. The ferry ride was nice and saved us the time and hassle of driving through Limerick. We got off in County Clare and drove to Kilkee, where we stopped for a pizza.

We continued to drive north to get to the Cliffs of Moher. On the way were some super-cute towns, and the golf course at Lahinch was just insane. It was right on the water, with castles – wow. We made it to the cliffs and paid the 8 euro to park with about a million other tourists. Matt was not expecting it to be as crowded as it was. I thought it was laid out well, with the two areas you can walk to; it was very funny how on the left, everyone just climbs over the giant sign that says “do not go beyond this point” so they can get to the part of the cliffs with no guardrails or barriers – much better views for picture-taking! The cliffs were very high (of course) and it was very windy. We stayed for about an hour and then got back in the car, even though we were pretty tired of driving at this point. We got to Bunratty at about 5:30. I really expected Bunratty to be bigger. Matt wanted to know why we weren’t staying at a “bigger town near the airport” and I explained that this was basically as big as it got if we wanted to be close to Shannon Airport in the morning. We checked into our B&B (Bunratty Courtyard) and walked around a bit, then had dinner at Durty Nelly’s Pub (by dinner I mean soup and a sandwich from the pub side.) We ate at the tables outside right underneath Bunratty Castle, which was pretty cool. The castle is RIGHT up on the road; I guess I wasn’t expecting that. We had a few beers and reminisced about our trip, then headed back to the B&B to call it a night because we had to get up at 5:30 the next morning for our flight home (not my doing – the airline switched us to an earlier flight.) Our room at the Courtyard was very nice, by the way. Unfortunately we didn’t get to sample the breakfast the next morning. All in all, it was a fantastic trip, and I don’t think I would have changed a thing if I could do it all over again!

Hope you enjoyed our trip report! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask away!

Glad you had such a wonderful time. I agree with you about the marvelous sights on Dingle- such a breathtakingly beautiful place! I got so spoiled by it, that the Ring of Kerry later didn't seem nearly as spectacular, though it's beautiful as well.

So, when are you planning your next trip over? It's addicting!