jonathang

Hi there,

I will be visiting some friends of mine at Trinity College in Dublin starting on the 16th of August. I have two weeks to burn before I head off for Amsterdam to start a semester abroad program at the University of Amsterdam.

I figure a week will be about enough to drink myself into oblivion and wear out my friends' welcome and start to think that I've seen enough of Dublin.

So that leaves me one week to start making my way towards Amsterdam, does anybody have any recommendations about which direction I should head in?

I'll be living in Amsterdam for 4 months on a somewhat limited budget so I can't burn it all in the first month, which is why some planning might be in order.

Where would you go if you had a free week to spend in Western Europe somewhere in between Dublin and Amsterdam?

kakalena

Lucky you to be spending a semester in Amsterdam!

If you haven't been to London, I'd go there. My niece and her friend just did the reverse of your trip. A week in London and then a week in Dublin.

They stayed with friends in Dublin and spent 12L/nt. in London at a hostel off Piccadilly Circus. They said the place was okay and they're fairly finicky. Not sure if the guy's side of the hostel is the same.

http://www.piccadillyhotel.net/

Eat at Pret a Porter or other take aways. Get a transit pass for tube/bus. Cheap enough.

Bruges Belgium is cool too but it is out of the way and may be out of your budget. Not a party place but interesting.

Good luck and have a wonderful time in Amsterdam!

Kakalena

jonathang

London was really the first place I thought of (along with Paris) but I am just kind of afraid of the costs of staying there for an entire week. You know the first thing you hear from someone returning from there is: I loved it but it was SO expensive. I want to go someplace but not feel like I need to bargain hunt so I don't break the bank.

That just reminded me that I have a "friend" that lives in Kingston that I should be emailing. Good going kakalena.

Do you (or anyone else) have a clue what I might expect to spend on a modest budget for let's say 5 days in London? Because man, if it's more reasonable then I suspect then that would certainly be my first choice.

Another place I was considering is Belfast. It looks like it's only 2 hours from Dublin and there are some pretty reasonable flights from there to Amsterdam with easyjet. I used the search engine to look up some stuff about it and I didn't find much at all.

Has anyone here visited Belfast in the past? Anything interesting to share about it?

Thanks,

J

kakalena

Jonathan.

I would absolutely steer clear of Paris.


It's difficult to say how much it would cost for you to stay in London not knowing how you'd like to spend your time.

You'd have to buy transport to London from Dublin.

See above post for hostel (12 pounds/nt) unless you stay with friends.

Here's a place to eat. It's Pret a Manger (take to eat) not Pret a Porter (take to wear). Hee-hee. Unless you tend to spill on yourself. ; )

http://www.pret-a-manger.com/menu/

or other inexpensive carry-out place.

Tube/bus fares. (or walk from Piccadilly if you stay there.)

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/common/downloa...es-revised.pdf

Entertainment:

Museums, movies, music

http://www.timeout.com/london/

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk


The big question? What's you beer budget? ; ) Pub crawls:

http://www.beerintheevening.com/crawls/gen.shtml

Good luck and take care!

kakalena

jonathang

Great links, thanks so much for those Kakalena.

I think I am going to take your advice and head over to London for 5-6 days.

Merseyheart

My screen name will tip you off to my suggestion. Liverpool!...after all, you just have to take the ferry over from Dublin. Livepool has a music festival around the UK August Bank Holiday. Lots of free music right on the street. http://www.visitliverpool.com

OReilly

Jonathan:

I suggest you first check out the cost of flights from Dublin to a middle destination and then from that destination to Amsterdam. Make sure you don't exhaust your limited budget on transportation! Here are the Ryanair and Aer Lingus Websites:

http://ryanair.com/index.html

http://www.aerlingus.com/cgi-bin/obel01im1/index.jsp

You could also fly directly to Amsterdam from Dublin, store all unnessary baggage, and then take advantage of the wonderful train system to visit anywhere in the low Benelux or France. You may be able to get cheap flights from Amsterdam to Spain or Portugal, which are cheaper to stay in than many other destinations.

regards .. Ger

pilgrim

I booked Dublin -London on a Saturday night in June for 18 euros on an internet special (bmi).

OReilly

I just had another look at the Ryanair site. You can fly directly from Dublin to Girona, just north of Barcelona (one of my favorite cities ) spend the week there and then fly from Girona (on Ryanair) to ouside of Brussels. You could then get a train from Brussels to Amsterdam.

That's what I would do!

regards Ger

jonathang

Man you guys are killing me over here I want to go all of these places now.

It's funny Oreilly I was actually looking at that same Dublin-Barcelona flight yesterday, but 110 Euros one way is just too much for me.

jonathang

I am looking at some other options now, London sounds good if my damn friend would email me back already.

I guess no one really goes to Belfast, I wonder why.

Hot damn I just looked at the aerlingus site, some good flights on there. I am going to confuse myself even more now.

jonathang

well things are looking pretty good my friends. Dublin to London costs about 32 Euros and then London-Amsterdam is another 28 pounds, looks like I can book this whole thing for just under 100 dollars after taxes and everything. BMI is damn good I have to say.

Not bad at all...

Ann41

Jonathan-plenty of people do go to Belfast, and have posted on this site about it. Not sure why your search didn't come up with anything.

You could take the train up to Belfast and use it as a base (the IYH hostel in the city centre is a good spot). UlsterBus offers a lot of bus tours around Northern Ireland. I'd spend one day around Belfast (definitely do the black taxi tour), one or two days doing the Antrim Coast, maybe a day down to Newgrange, a day in the Mourne. There's an Ulsterbus website that will give you info on the tours.

And it is a nice short flight from Belfast to Amsterdam. There are buses from Belfast to the airport--again, ask at the hostel.

Amsterdam is where you will really drink yourself into oblivion. Don't miss the bar where the sailors used to pay their bills with monkeys. Can't remember the name, but it's in the guidebooks.

kakalena

Jonathan,

Here are some reviews of other hostels in London's West End.

http://www.bugeurope.com/reviews/Eng...ndon/West_End/

My niece stayed in the women's dorm side of the Piccadilly (which is slightly more expensive and maybe a bit cleaner). She said it was fine but some others didn't like it (take flip-flops for shower!). There are other good reviews of other hostels all in the West End. If you end up taking the hostel route I'd print out this page and take it along in case you want to make a switch for some reason.

Here's a map search engine to locate the addresses.

http://www.mapquest.co.uk/cgi-bin/ia...9pa:25da2w06ax

Here's the map for the Piccadilly Hotel address.

http://www.mapquest.co.uk/cgi-bin/ia...nd+Map=Get+Map

Sounds like you've gotten a lot of good ideas here. Will you write us and tell us how it went if you go ahead with any of it? Would be nice to have a current student's comments included in the archives.

kakalena

jonathang

I sure will. No prob.

Frances

What's with the new format today?
I hope I'm not too late with this suggestion but in your situation I'd head west to Connemara and the Aran Islands and then on to Sligo and Donegal. You'd see a part of Ireland which is completely different from Dublin and I think I can accurately prdict you'll come back to this forum overwhelmed and singing the praises of the west. You have stunning scenery, lovely people and beaches, history and the sea.

mclaurie

Not new format, Frances. Just long URLs! I was surprised Frances was the first to suggest seeing some other parts of Ireland.

I would actually save London for maybe a weekend trip while you're in Amsterdam. There are so many discount airlines that can get you to so many places. Whichbudget.com, applefare.com are websites that list a lot of them.

I personally would take advantage of the time of year and go someplace beachy and fun before hunkering down to work. That could be Ireland, Portugal, Spain etc. But I think go someplace you won't want to go on a weekend later on.

BTW, make sure you remember to add taxes on to some of the cheap airfare prices you're looking at. They'll still be good but maybe not so low.

jonathang

Thanks for the advice once again guys. I haven't booked anything yet, I am still waiting to hear back from some friends that I might be meeting up with. Hopefully those tickets will still be around by the time people contact me and tell me their final plans.

I would normally agree with you guys about taking advantage of the weather and checking out some beachy places, but I live in South Florida and to tell you the truth I am kind of burned out on warm weather and beaches after hanging out here for the past two months. I've been to Spain before, I spent two weeks around Madrid and the whole Southern part of Spain, and I wouldn't mind checking out Barcelona now if it wasn't so much more expensive then the Dublin-London-Amsterdam route which is less then 100 dollars after all the taxes. Going to Spain or Portugal would be about 3 times as expensive in terms of flights.

I am planning to do some small trips out of Dublin with my Irish friends in their car, probably headed out West somewhere as one of them has family out there. To be honest I'm not really much of a nature fan, it's nice to mix things up a little and drive through places but if I had the choice I would hang out in cities as much as I could. That's just me though, I understand people that go nuts for that kind of thing.

mclaurie

While air fare/train is a major expense, lodging and food is too. Just remember that at the current exchange rate, the British pound is almost double the dollar (a GBP=$1.82 or in reverse $1.00= .52 GBP pence here's a currency converter http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic)

Currently $1.00= .83 euros so in an EU country, your money will go a bit further.

The message board on slowtrav.com is also a good place get info on budget travel. There's also a website for student travel statravel.com and also statravel.uk that may lead you to get discounts.

Good luck!!

Ann41

The UK is part of the EU, it just doesn't use the single currency.

And it doesn't make sense to say your money goes further in euros than pounds. For example, it's cheaper to travel in Northern Ireland where we use the pound than in the Republic of Ireland, where the euro is used. It just depends on prices in the particular country.