Ireland

In December, I decided that I wanted to travel somewhere for my last spring break. I looked up where the cheapest flight would take me that was outside the country, and that place was Ireland. I invited my mom to come with me, making it our first mother-daughter trip outside the country. We had decided to book two tours. Our first tour was going up to Belfast and Giants Causeway. The second one was a four-day tour around the southwestern part of the island.

DAY 1

Once both of us had arrived in Dublin, we took the bus to the city center and found our Airbnb for the night. We then walked around and explored Dublin. For dinner, we ate at this cute Thai restaurant called, Thai Spice. It was very good.

DAY 2

We had booked a tour with PaddyWagon Tours to go up to Northern Ireland for two days. Once we were on the bus, we started up towards Belfast. We stopped at this cemetery called Monsasterboice. It was quite cold, so we didn’t spend too much time there.

Our bus driver, Richard, was nice but didn’t like people being late getting back to his bus. We had stopped at a gas station to buy lunch and only had 15 minutes. My mom was buying her lunch, but we were already running a little late. I ran to the bus and told the bus driver to wait for her. It was a good thing that I had told him because he would have left without us. When we arrived in Belfast, we got to go on a black cab tour. At first, I was a little wary of this tour, but after taking it, I highly suggest it. We got to see parts of the city we wouldn’t have seen without this tour. I also didn’t realize how bad the political issues were. Our tour guide told us that the taxicab drivers may or may not tell us what side they are on (Catholic or Protestant). We figured out what side our cab driver was on based on how he referred to the Protestants. It was interesting to hear about the political issues from the perspective of a local man.

We then got dropped off and got back onto our bus and rode to the Titanic Museum. It is quite a large museum and it even had a ride (kind of like the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland).

We then got dropped off at our B&B for the night. For dinner, we went to a place called, Kurrito. It was good but wasn’t great though.

DAY 3

We got onto the bus to go up to the Giants Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Bridge. We made a stop at the Dark Hedges, which is where a scene from Game of Thrones was filmed. According to our new tour guide, James, these trees are dying because there are over 300 years old. So, the Dark Hedges won’t exist in the next fifteen to twenty years. My pictures don’t do the Dark Hedges justice. It is so much prettier in person. We then went to Carrick-a-Rede Bridge. We actually got to see blue skies for the first time since we arrived in Ireland. It was also the first time that the bridge was open in a couple of days, due to previous icy conditions. You have to walk about .5 miles to get to the actual bridge. The scenery around the bridge was absolutely incredible. Also, from the bridge, you can see the tip of Scotland. From there we drove to the Giants Causeway. We also got to stop for lunch at the Giants Causeway. We ate a pub called The Nook. I had probably the best fish and chips there. We then walked down to the Giants Causeway.  We climbed on the rocks and then walked up to the top of the cliffs and looked down onto the Causeway. This was one of my favorite spots of the trip. I love that you could climb on the rocks, but beware, some are slippery.  We then stopped at the Dunluce Castle, which was another filming spot from Game of Thrones. We then headed back to Dublin after an amazing weekend in Northern Ireland. We stayed at the Staycity Apartments, and we got upgraded! We originally had rented a one bedroom with a kitchen hotel/apartment for the night. They told us they ran out of smaller apartments, and we got upgraded to the penthouse. The penthouse had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, kitchen and laundry room. Apparently, the penthouse usually costs $638 per night.

DAY 4

We also booked a four-day tour of the southwestern side of the island. Our tour began at 7:00am at the train station. There, we met our tour guides from Rail Ireland. All the guides were super nice and friendly. We got off at the Cork train station and hopped onto our bus. We drove through the city and drove to Blarney Castle. We got a couple of hours to explore the castle and kiss the Blarney Stone.  We then got back on to the bus and drove to Cobh (pronounced like “Cove”). We had an hour there to explore the little town. From there we took a train to Cork and then to Killarney, which was our home base for the next three nights. Our tour guide had made a reservation at the Porterhouse Restaurant. We listened to live music and I got this delicious fish sampler platter. In Killarney, we were going to stay at the Copper Kettle B&B, but instead, we got to stay at The Fairview Guesthouse. I definitely recommend staying at there. The staff was extremely nice and accommodating.

DAY 5

We headed off to drive the Ring of Kerry. We stopped at the Kerry Bog Village Museum, where we got to see the type of houses people lived in back in the 1800’s. There were also two cute Irish Wolfhound dogs. We then continued on and stopped for photo breaks. We stopped at The Scarriff Inn for lunch. They had the most amazing views from the restaurant looking out at the water.  We then continued on to finish the drive and arrived back in Killarney. We had free time and I went souvenir shopping. I fell in love with this one artist’s paintings. His name is Thomas Joseph, and I think his stuff is just so funny. I laugh every time I see his stuff. Our tour guide told us that Killarney has very good Indian food, so we decided to try it. We ended up going to a restaurant called Uptown. They serve Indian, Chinese, and Thai food, and it was delicious. The staff was super helpful and nice. I definitely recommend eating there if you have a chance.

DAY 6

For most of our trip, the weather wasn’t the best. Our tour guide said he hadn’t seen rain like this in a while. My rain jacket wasn’t keeping me dry, so we went to buy a nice long, warm, waterproof jacket. We then headed out towards the Dingle Peninsula. It was pouring rain, so most of our stops were just to take a quick photo and then head back to the van. We stopped in the town of Dingle for lunch and had time to explore the quaint town.  In the harbor, there is a well-known dolphin called Fungie, who has stayed there for many years. People can take boat tours to see the dolphin.

DAY 7

We left Killarney and drove to Limerick, where we picked up other people. We then headed out to Bunratty Castle, where we got a short, guided tour inside. We then got to explore the castle and walk around the little village. We stopped for lunch a little outside of Doolin, at O’Connor’s Pub. It was so crowded in there, but we got our food within a minute after ordering. We then drove to the Cliffs of Moher, where we got a break from the rain, and actually got to see blue skies. This only lasted five minutes, before it started dumping rain again. This also was one of my favorite stops. I loved that even with the crappy weather, you could still see the ocean and the cliffs. From pictures I had seen of them, I thought they were pretty. But being there is a whole new experience, no pictures do it justice.  On our way to Galway, some of the roads were flooding. We saw water rushing through a cemetery and spilling on to the road. We had a big bus, so we were able to drive through. We saw people in little sedans questioning if they could make it through the standing water.  We made our way to Galway City, where we had about thirty rushed minutes to get dinner and explore the city.  We hopped onto a train back to Dublin, where everyone on our tour took a goodbye shot of Jameson.

I am so glad I was able to take this trip with my mom. We were able to see so much in such a short time. It was a little rushed at times, but I think it was like a sampler of Ireland. Now I can make a list of the places where I want to spend more time.

Until my next adventure.