Ande
Unregistered User
(6/18/03 2:40 pm)

Trip including Dublin, Cashel, Killarney, Doolin, and Galway

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Hi Michele and Everybody:

My trip to Ireland was last week and it was absolutely wonderful. I flew from the States via London to Dublin with my mom on British Air. This was my first time on BA and they were good. We arrived in Dublin Sunday afternoon, utilizing the Aircoach bus which dropped us off just down the street from our hotel, Harcourt Hotel. What a great value this bus service is. A round trip ticket is just 10 euro. We got to the hotel 15 minutes before checkin time and our room wasn’t ready, so we left our luggage and hit the streets. For the rest of the day and the next day, we shopped the streets of Grafton and others, visited Trinity, Christchurch, St. Patrick’s, and more. It was a lot of fun. Everything is quite expensive though, I must say. I only bought a few things during my trip. One day in Dublin was miserable with pouring rain, but otherwise, we had a week of great weather. Dublin was fun, but a day and a half was enough of for me. I really prefer the countryside of Ireland, it’s amazing and stunning.

I was really surprised at how difficult it was the first day to look the correct direction before crossing the street. I nearly got killed a couple of times, even though I knew better and in some places it’s even written on the pavement which way to look.

We rented a car through Hertz. They gave us a car with two bald tires, which unfortunately, I didn’t notice until a couple of days later. I was worried with documenting the dings on the car and even pulled out the spare tire to make sure it was in good shape, but for some stupid reason I neglected to look at the regular tires. It amazed me that a company like Hertz would send out a car in that kind of condition. The treads were worn away and there was even a snag across one of them. A blowout could have easily happened and I am grateful for the safe passage. Driving on the left was no big deal and the roundabouts were fine. I had been worried about driving in Ireland in general. The roads were very narrow in some places and winding, but with careful, attentive driving, it was no big deal.

We headed to Cashel on day three. En route, we stopped in the town of Kildare to visit St. Brigid’s cathedral and round tower. The church is beautiful and the tower was so cool to climb. It’s 108 feet tall and it’s ladders the whole way. You get to come out on the roof and the wind was unbelievable up there. I even shook, it was so wild to be up so high and so cold and windy. We had lunch at Daniel Boland’s, a bar restaurant right on the main drag. It had been recommended by a lovely lady we met in the parking lot down the street. It was a perfect place to grab lunch before continuing on. Somewhere else en route, I saw a castle ruin not too far away, so we drove down the country road so I could walk around it and photograph it. I have no idea of its name, I’m going to have to do some research to find out. I had a great time castle spotting and stopped for a few. My mom’s patience wore out on the castles after a while, so I didn’t get to stop for some like Newton Castle, various mystery ruins, etc.

We got to Cashel easily, though we could not find the b&b on the first try. Rockside House is down a little street at the base of the Rock. Joan and Rem were very nice and it was a great stay. The Rock is incredible. I was in awe. It was so beautiful to see from a distance, beautiful at night, and had lovely views from the top of the hill. I’d say the Rock is definitely a must see when in Ireland. The town is also nice to walk around. I had pizza for dinner from an easy take away place (Morelli’s?). As daylight lasts a long time, we drove down to Cahir so I could take advantage of the sunny skies to photograph the exterior of Cahir Castle. The next day I toured the interior and it was a lot of fun to climb all the different stair cases. My goal was to climb as many stairs and towers as I could when in Ireland.

Wednesday, we drove to Killarney via Mallow. What a nice little town Mallow is. I wanted to see Mallow castle and it was in fact a neat ruin. There’s a nice looking pub across from the ruin, but we needed to move on. All of the towns we drove through varied from nice enough to very charming. The only town I really found unappealing and unattractive was Ennis.

Killarney is a great area. I loved the views around Ross Castle and had fun taking the interior tour of it. There is a lot of shopping in Killarney as well. The Muckross estate was really pretty. I could wander around there for forever! The Abbey was fun to explore as well. We really got in a lot of walking on this trip and the Muckross day was tons of walking.

Thursday, we drove to the Dingle peninsula. From the Dingle tourist office, we took Moran’s Slea Head minibus tour. It was nice for me to have a break from the driving, but the reason I took it was because I was worried it would be a scarey drive along cliffs. It was no big deal. Next time I will drive it myself. After the tour, we had lunch at a little café and did some shopping before getting in the car and driving back out to Ventry in pursuit of Rathinane Castle. It’s an old ruin with a neat ring fort. I’m glad I hunted it down, even though I did end up with a bunch of cow pie debris on my boots and pant legs. Well worth it and luckily I didn’t need those pants again for the rest of the trip. That reminds me that I need to get them into the washing machine tonight!! I washed them out in the b&b sink and then swaddled them up in plastic where they still are in a separate compartment of my suitcase.

The Dingle Peninsula was gorgeous. The weather was windy and cold, but with nice skies. I wish I could have set up a lounge chair along the coast line and just relaxed in a beautiful setting. There was an adorable orange cat lounging in the sun right at the edge of a cliff, nestled in some greenery. I of course had to take his picture. I would have liked to have taken a boat trip to see Fungi the dolphin, but it was so windy and cold, we passed.

I had purchased a Michelin map of Ireland for $12 before heading abroad and I would advise that you don’t need to waste the money as the car rental agency will give you a good map. The major roads are really quite well marked. I found it especially helpful that they painted the directions on the roadways themselves in some places. My only complaint with regard to the roadways and signs around the country is that quite a lot of them are obscured by shrubbery/foliage and it makes it difficult to read them. Also, I occasionally found that some of the signs arrows were not quite clear as to which directions they were really pointing to in the roundabouts. All in all though, driving was no problem in Ireland. Coming from the aggressive driving scene of Houston, I found the Irish drivers friendly, mild, and safe. They always seemed to use their turn signals and they also flashed their lights as a thank you when you moved over to let them pass. Renting a car in Ireland is expensive, but it’s well worth it to have the freedom to make any stop you choose and keep your own schedule. I would have gone crazy on a bus.

Friday, we set off early to exchange our car with the bad tires at Kerry Airport, en route to Doolin. I chose going through Limerick so I could stop by Bunratty and Dromoland. The drive was no problem. There was no Limerick traffic on a Friday morning. En route, we stopped in Adare to walk around and stretch our legs. It was a pretty town, but was the most touristed place we found during our entire trip. I can only imagine what it must be like during peak season. No thanks!! We stopped at Bunratty so I could photograph the exterior of the castle and so we could shop in the stores across from it. I feasted on some Butler’s chocolates purchased in the big store there. We then proceeded on to Dromoland. It was empty. I had wanted to stay there, but the rates were very high, around $400 a night. You would think they would have some good specials still going on while I was there, but alas, they didn’t. So, we just walked around the grounds and the beautiful interior and had lunch in the golf club, which was quite enjoyable.

We were heading to Doolin via the Cliffs of Moher. The Atlantic coastline was beautiful and the Cliffs were just as I expected. It was a great weather day and it was perfect. There were several tour buses there, but it did not seem crowded, everyone was fairly well dispersed. I went up O’Briens’s tower and found it to be a waste of money. The views are better from the ground.

We drove down a little slope so I could photograph Doonagore Castle. It made a nice picture. We then checked in to our Doolin hotel, Cullinans. Our room was noisy until the restaurant cleared. Doolin was a nice area, but there was nothing to do there really. We took a drive to Ballyvaughn (nice little town), but nothing was going on there as well. It surprised me across the country how early the shops close. Most every shop closed at 6. Dublin was really surprising in this regard. My final night before flying out was in Dublin and I had hoped to do some last minute shopping. Only a couple of postcard type shops were open.

As far as the pubs, I couldn’t really handle going into them in the evenings because of the intensity of the smoking. I’m just not used to that kind of smoky environment. I stuck to pubs in the afternoons for lunches.

We had planned to drop the car off at Galway airport and take the train back to Dublin, but I changed my mind since the driving was not the hassle I had been expecting. We drove from Doolin to Galway, making random stops along the way for some photo ops, as well as a couple of stores. We found the Burren Craft Center along N67 and made quite a few purchases there. Some of the items I bought there were much more highly priced in Galway.

Galway was really hopping. I couldn’t believe all of the people hanging out in the square, along the river, and in the shopping streets. It was busier than Grafton Street I’d say. I bought some nice silver jewelry at McCarthy Jewelers, but that’s it. Grabbed a croissant from a French bakery and then we hit the road after two hours in town. By the way, the Great Southern Hotel makes a fine place to make a restroom break. I would want to stay there if I were to stay in Galway.

The drive back to Dublin was easy once we got out of Galway. There was construction traffic on the way out of Galway. It was about three hours on Saturday afternoon to get from the center of Galway to our hotel north of the Dublin airport. No problems with traffic in Dublin via the M50, M1, and N1. There’s definitely heavy traffic though if you were to drive through Dublin city centre. That tunnel construction project is something else. It looks like it’s going to take a long time. We only encountered this traffic when we were actually heading in to town upon arrival via the air coach bus. We did not have to go through it to get to our final lodging, Glenmore House.

I was sad to leave Ireland, it was truly the beautiful place I expected, with friendly, gracious people everywhere. I’m already formulating ideas for what I will do the next time I go. My thanks go out to Michele, Bill, Debbie, and everyone else who was so helpful to me when I was making my plans for my trip.

Michele Erdvig
ezOP
Posts: 1574
(6/18/03 10:48 pm)

Thanks For the Report

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Hi Ande,

Thanks so much for your comprehensive trip report. It was my pleasure helping you plan your trip. I'm sure everyone else enjoyed it too. It's great to hear you are planning another visit.

I'm glad you enjoyed your castles and ruins.

Michele

Helen
Unregistered User
(6/20/03 11:09 am)

Hertz Rental, Disappointment!

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Hi Ande...We just returned from Ireland a week ago, and had a wonderful time. We rented from Hertz at the Dublin airport,arriving in Dublin on a rainy evening (6 PM).When my husband was at the Hertz Rental to pick our car up, they told him there was a small dent in the trunk (boot?). Well, he asked them if the previous renter had paid to have it fixed and they said , "Yes, but there wasn't time to repair the dent, and this was the only car of our requested size (a Toyota midsize)". It was noted on the invoice, and we were in a hurry to get to our BandB in Portmarnock (Wonderful quaint carriage house next to Portmarnock Golf Links!), and it was raining so hard,he just did a quick look around the car, and we left the airport. Well--the next morning we did a double take when we saw the car in the sunshine! The "dent" was the size of a football! No kidding. We took the "rent a dent" Toyota back to the main Hertz office at the airport, and told them we hadn"t paid for a "rent-a dent", and got another newer car without a question. But it took an hour or so out of our itinerary to Belfast. Moral of the story--CHECK THE CAR AND DON'T TAKE ANY EXCUSES!..Other than that, our 3 week stay was awesome...Happy and Safe Travels....Helen