Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Ireland trip recap

We spent 9 days in Ireland. It was the first time either of us have been to Ireland and we were both pleasantly surprised. We loved the scenery, people, and the food. We were also so lucky as the weather was spectacular - no rain!! In Dublin we arrived at 5:40 am , hopped a cab to the George Frederic Handel Hotel. They did not let us check in until about 11:00, so we decided to do the hop-on hop-off bus, a great way to get your bearings in a new city. After that we checked into the hotel, which was just ok. Nothing special at all. It was very loud as it is in Temple Bar and we heard karaoke all night long. We had 2 nice meals: Elephant at Castle for a snack and Eden for dinner. The next morning we took the train to Galway and our hosts (Eddie & Helen) at the Four Seasons B&B picked us up. They were a pleasure and went out of their way for us. We poked around Galway, had delicious fish & chips at McDonough's. That evening we had dinner at the Park Room restaurant - excellent chowder and bread and fish. We listened to some live music at the Spanish Arch- a fun night. the next morning Helen drove us to Galway airport to get our car - an automatic, but the horn did not work! We drove through Connemara - spectacular scenery. We stopped for luch at the Ballynahinch castle - very pretty and good food. Too bad we did not get as far as Westport, as I hear the further North you are the more spectacular the scenery gets. We drove back through Roundstone back to Galway. Dinner at Pierre's, which was quite good. The next morning we said good-bye to Helen & Eddie and traveled to Doolin to catch the ferry to Aran Island - Inishmore. We waited for over 2 hrs as the tide was lowand a boat got stuck so the ferry could not come in. We decided not to wait any longer and changed our itinerary and drove to Dingle (we were not planning on going) but we now has some more time. We drove to the Shores which was amazing - Annette has a beautiful home in a great spot and a bargain at 35 euro/person. It was late when we arrived, but we were able to make it to Tomasins, the local restaurant, which was delicious! We decided to stay 2 nights as it was so pleasant. The next morning we awoke and to our surprise it was the same waiter from Tomasin's the night before that was serving us breakfast (Annette's son). We spent the day driving through the Dingle Peninsula which was beautiful. We had dinner at the Shores - Annette is a great cook and serves just lovely.....I will write more of a trip recap later...