mjb1

Okay, my girlfriend and I are arriving in Dublin on Aug 9. This is how we set up our trip:
Aug 9-12: Dublin
Aug 12: pick up car rental
Aug 12-17: Cork, as our home base
Aug 17: Dublin
Aug 18: home
These are the things she wants to see:
Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Dingle Peninsula, Ring of Kerry, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wicklow, and the Aran Islands. I am concerned that Cork is not the best place to make our base. Also, might we be trying to take in too much for 10 days? Her interests lie in history, churches, and culture.
Any suggestions?

MaryZ

Given what you want to see, Cork doesn't work too well as a base. Dingle, the Ring of Kerry, and the Aran Islands are all on the west coast and a good distance from Cork.

Basing in Dublin and Cork, you'll have easy access to Wicklow, Waterford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, but you really ought to have a west coast base for the other places you mentioned. And, I do think this might be pretty ambitious for a 10 day visit.

amyprib

Some of your things are kinda spread out. We did all this stuff plus some, except ROK, on our trip in 12days (see "Trip report Jun17-30" down the list) but it was probably faster moving than you want. We did a lot of site-seeing on our way to the next BB. Here's some comments...

-Might want to give some more specifics in these places to help plan your route better. Places like Waterford, Cork, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wicklow are all nice, but probably not loads to do in each, and yet not best to visit all from the same base. Outlining a few more details would help determine how much time is needed to spend. What are the absolute "must-sees", etc..
-You could probably just spend Aug9-10, and part of Aug17 in Dublin, depending on the times you arrive and depart.
-You probably should plan on 1 whole day for Aran Islands, likely InisMor.
-Cork would be a decent home base for Cork (and Blarney), Cobh, Cashel, maybe Mizen Head, but probably not much else. Otherwise you might spend more time driving than seeing sites. My preference would be to move more and be closer to my destination, than spend hours driving there AND back to my base.
-To see the things she wants to see, you might end up with a few 1-2nite stays in places, which is fine.
-You could use Killarney as a base for Killarney and Dingle Pn. You'll want at least 3+hrs to drive and make stops on Dingle Pn. If you do anything with Killarney Natl Park, you'll want more than a half day minimum for that.
-I second your concern in that Cork is not the best base for ALL those places, but rather you would split up the days into a couple different bases.

I've read many many people here say to skip the Ring of Kerry, and do either Dingle Pn, or Beara Pn, or both. Mizen Head is also quite amazing in the coastal scenery dept.
ROK is touristy and busy and traffic-y, and takes a full day to tour properly. I have not seen the ROK personally, but most say Dingle has better scenery.
We drove around on Dingle Pn and Beara Pn (on different days) and loved it, Dingle esp.
What about Killarney Natl Park and surroundings? Some spectacular scenery and drives in that area.

I don't know what there is to do in Tipperary. Rock of Cashel and Cahir Castle are in that area which are both interesting.
There isn't much to do in Waterford, except the crystal factory tour which is interesting, but skippable. There are some nice little towns south of there, like Dunmore East, Tramore, etc, that have nice coasts, but you can find better ways to spend your time. Is there something specific to you that warrants much time in Waterford?

You will probably want a half or more day for county Wicklow, but not sure if you mean the town or the county. County Wicklow has places like Glendalough, Vale of Avoca, pretty drives, and Powerscourt Estates (northeast of Glendalough), and much more. Do you have any specific "musts" for Wicklow areas?

We went to Kilkenny and took the Castle tour. I prefer ruins, but it was interesting and informative. There's a few churches there too. You can also stop in Jerpoint for the Abbey, neat ruins. It's only about 15-20min south of Kilkenny.

I would suggest a full day for the Aran Islands. You'd want to move up towards Shannon or Ennis or Galway for that. The ferry from Rossaveel (1hr west of Galway) is a 45min ride to InisMor. We visited InisMor (the largest) in a span of 3-4hrs, and while we saw some of the main sites, I would definitely want to spend a whole day there.
Just research some of these places to see what interests you and get a rough estimate for how much time you'd need to spend.
You can also see the Cliffs of Moher from this area, which I highly recommend in the late evening timeframe while the sun is out, but setting. Gorgeous.

If you're near Cork, you can visit Blarney Castle and grounds, and also the little island of Cobh, which is a neat little town, but not a whole lot to do. There is Titanic history on Cobh though.

If I were to give you an outline, it might be too fast-paced. I'll let others try that.

mjb1

Message: Thanks for your input. We might skip County Wicklow. Waterford is of interest because she loves Waterford crystal. That is the only thing of interest there. I'll be speaking to her soon and we will try to narrow down on some things. I also told her about this site, so she might start asking questions too.

mjb1

Thought I had to add "Messagequot; to this post and now realize it is automatically added!