stdekagr

Thanks in advance for any ideas you can give me!

First of all none of us has been to Europe
2 parents, 2 kids ages 14 and 16 traveling to Ireland with a group for a seven day stay.... We are a soccer team traveling together and will be playing soccer and seeing the sights around Galway, any other ideas would be awesome!

My questions are....

1. If and where should we go after Ireland? We will probably have about 5 days to travel, where should we visit to get the most out of our trip and it be entertaining for all of us!

2. My daughter is turning 16 while we are there...any ideas for a great birthday celebration? We were going to avoid Paris due to the Versailles Festival, but, should we include it? Both of my kids are taking French right now.

Thanks again!

greg

There are a few items not clear.
Mentioning of Versailles Festival seems to indicate you are traveling in summer?
Versailles and Paris are different cities. How does the festival impact a Paris visit?
If your children are studying French, Paris (or anywhere France) seems to be a perfect match above all destinations. What is the scruple?

Mimar

Are your plane flights part of the group trip and would you need to return from Ireland? If not, get open jaws tickets into Ireland and out of Paris. Or, better, a multi-city trip with step 1 to Ireland, step 2 Ireland to Paris or wherever, step 3 Paris to home.

I deduce your trip is in the June-early July time period -- from your mention of the Versailles Festival. Is Versailles a must for you? Because I've been to Paris 10 times or so and never been to Versailles. Not really interested. Versailles is outside Paris proper and its festival should not interfere in any way with tourism inside Paris or even in other areas surrounding Paris.

janisj

The OP first posted over on the Travel tips forum . . . http://www.fodors.com/community/trav...reland-to-.cfm

W/ the new info that your time in Ireland will concentrate on the Galway area and football games - You should consider spending the rest of your time in Ireland since there is a lot more to see/do.

I agree that the Versailles festival will have little to no impact on sites in central Paris.

So my choices would be one of the following:

1) Ireland
2) Paris
3) London

. . . depending on which sounds most to your liking/interests.

stdekagr

Thanks for your input thus far!

To clarify:

1. We are traveling Mid June
2. Our flights are our responsibility