Flying into Dublin have 10 days to explore Europe
 

I am taking my husband for his 60th birthday to Europe. It will be the first time for both us. We will be flying into Dublin in the beginning of May. The rest is to be determined. I love to go,go,go and have the tendency to pack too much into a trip! We are both very active love hiking, biking and seeing something new. We will have about 10 days and I want to get the most out of our trip.(at the same time not making the birthday boy miserable by overdoing it!) Any suggestions?

If the rest is not yet determined, it is probably not a good idea to box yourself into flying into Dublin yet. Are you also flying back from Dublin?

If by Europe, you mean the continental Europe, with that little number of days, you would have more days to "hiking, biking and seeing something new" if you don't have to back track to Dublin. If Dublin is a destination, as opposed to somewhere you thought the flight was cheaper without considering the rest, fly into Dublin or return from Dublin, but not both.

Ten days, with jet lag and May can be a bit wet in ireland. I'd look at max two centres with flights home from the second centre.

Try something like
Dublin and countryside 5 days

then 5 days in one of
Algarve or
Venice and the Dolimites or
Siena and some bike rides or
Avignon, Nimes, Arles on a bike

All very interesting areas, try not to back track so go for open jaw flights

If your whole trip is ten days -- that gives you 7.5 days on the ground and the first day or two will likely be jet lagged.

So Ireland is about it -- unless you are just using DUB because you got a great airfare. If that is the case you'll need to fly directly on from DUB on the day you arrive (to whichever single city/country you want to visit) stay 7 nights and fly back to DUB the evening before your flight out.

You can't really "explore Europe" into and out of Dublin with so few days to deal with. You can explore a bit of Ireland, and that's about all.

I would guess there is a reason for Dublin/Ireland. It may have to be just Ireland in that case.

If you are going through Dublin just for cheap airfare, consider the cost of getting to any other place in Europe, plus the cost of time wasted doing so. It is even worse if you are also returning through Dublin because you would need to go back there the night before, again wasting time and money. Travel time and money spent to actually see something is fair and rightly spent. Time and money spent just departing and returning to an out-of-the-way entry point is time and money completely wasted.

If you want to tour Ireland, great! Go for it!

If you want to see places in other countries, go to those countries and try to land in and depart from cities or places you want to see. Don't look for RT (unless that is the place you want to be) or 1-way (too expensive). Look at multi-city or multi-destination tickets to fly into one place and out of another. Ticket cost will be about the same and save money and time backtracking.

Traveling from Dublin to either Scotland or England will eat up at least half a day. each way. Trying to go further will take even be longer. Simply put, for the best use of your travel time stay in Ireland. There's plenty to see and do, far more than 7 days will fill.

You have really given us noting to go on.

In th very limited time you have (I guess 8.5 days but I may be wrong) you are limited IMHO to 2 places. (To try to see all of europe would take months.)

So - which 2 places mean "europe" to you - would you not want to miss (can be a city, a sight, or an experience) but you have to pick something.

Thanks for all the replies. Our local airport just started offering a direct flight to Dublin this week. Easy access, good price. Looks like I am trying to do too much..

In ten days(even with travel time), you could explore Dublin, go on one or two day trips outside of Dublin, and then fly to Amsterdam. Round trip flights between Dublin and Amsterdam are under $150. In Amsterdam there are lots of opportunities for bicycling in the countryside. This would give you two amazing and very different countries to experience. And you'd be in Holland when the tulips are blooming!

>>> Looks like I am trying to do too much.
It may be too much or too little. You have not mentioned where you are going. We don't even know if Dublin is your destination or just an entry/return airport to somewhere else.

>>> Easy access, good price.
If you are only concerned about access to Dublin, and you only have to pay for flight cost to Dublin, then the way you looked at makes sense. However, if by flying into Dublin, while may you have good access to Dublin, but made access to "other" places devilishly difficult to totally wipe out an "easy access" advantage, you are not getting "easy access" as a whole. Same for price. If by flying to Dublin, you might have gotten a good price, but if that caused remainder of cost to spike up as well as having to consume time using Dublin as an entry point, you could be paying more over all for a shorter less of a trip. Is this what you want?

ALL of what Greg said. Flight price isn't the only thing to look for.
Where do YOU want to go IN Europe? I suggest 2 or at most and VERY marginally 3 places for your length of time and then investigate an open jaw flight--into entry place and out of last place.
THEN you will have a trip to Europe that works.

<i> Flying into Dublin have 10 days to explore Europe
Posted by: Ampm on Oct 1, 16 at 8:39am</i>

Ten days is almost enough to explore Guinness Island, quickly. Have a look at Belfast and Cork, and points west.

My local airport also just started flights on aer lingus to Dublin and it certainly is exciting. But it doesn't mean you have to stop in Ireland other than to change planes. You can book - all on one ticket- from your airport (mine is BDL) to a ton of locations all over Europe, you just connect in Dublin. So for example in March I am going to fly BDL-change in DUB - on to Milan. Next summer I am doing the same thing only to Spain. I have already been using aer lingus from an airport further away (in my case Boston) for years since their prices are so good and they offer so many connections. However, you can't go everywhere. For example, in March I really want to go to Venice, not Milan but the times don't work from my local airport. But I can take a train from Milan to Venice for about 20€ (if I book a few months ahead) and the train is relatively quick and painless.

So - I would first decide where in Europe you want to go. I agree with the others that with only ten days you should probably limit yourself to a couple of places in one country, or at most two countries.

I would suggest Italy - pick two cities (Rome, Florence, Venice). See if the time works on the aer lingus site to fly into one and out of the other, but if not, as I said trains will work to get you to/from which ever city you want within Italy.

Or something like into Amsterdam - train to Paris and fly back from there.

So you need to pick two (of the many) cities aer lingus flies to and they should be not more than 3 or 4 hours apart by train.