Hi all!
I hope this post will inspire some of you when planning a trip to the best country in the world (well that’s my opinion anyway ahahah). Last month, I spent a week in Ireland with a friend. Our program is great for people who want to visit a lot of places in a limited amount of time when you don’t rent a car. Here we go:
Thursday - Dublin
We arrived on the afternoon. There are a lot of buses from the airport to city center so you won’t have to wait too much or call a taxi if you don’t want to. Count €7 for a single trip (fares here). If you want to call a taxi, I highly recommend you to use the MyTaxi app, which works like Uber.
From city center, we took a bus to our hotel (Zion Hall Guesthouse, very friendly staff and they have a kitchen in the common area if you want to cook your own meals). Careful here: city buses only accept change AND you have to give the exact amount as they don’t give back change. I recomend you buy a leap card and use their app to add credit when needed.
We stayed at the hotel this evening as we had a long day ahead, but there are a few cute restaurant down the road (the 108 for example) and a Super Value if you need to buy groceries.
Friday - Northern Ireland
Whaaat? I thought you said no car renting?
Yes, no car renting. We booked a day tour with Irish Day Tours, my new favourite day tour company because their drivers are awesome. I recommend it as the driver tells you about the country’s history as you pass by and have plenty of fun stories between the sites. We chose the Giant’s Causeway + Game of Thrones tour, which includes:
- a visit to the Dark Hedges (really cool location, but it’s hard to get a photo without a full crowd of tourists who try to have their perfect shot just like you), aka the alley with the weird trees in GoT
- Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which was my favourite part of the day! It’s £8 for an adult ticket to cross the bridge, but it will be arranged by Irish Day Tours if you go with this company. You have a 10-15min walk on the cliffs to reach the bridge and cross it to find yourself on a kind of peninsula above the ocean. It’s beautiful, really. You can see le green ladscape behind you (with cute sheeps), the waves down the cliffs and as it was sunny when we went there, the water had all kind of blues. Careful with the bridge if you are affraid of heights. Also, if you don’t walk very well, the path to go there can be tricky, especially on the peninsula, it is NOT a clear paved path and it can be dangerous when raining. I found it very fun to go to but if you’re the kind of person who slips everytime there is a few rocks, or tired when you climb a small hill, that may not be fun for you. There is a shop/restaurant near the parking. The site is very windy and you will probably appreciate to be able to grab a hot cup of coffee inside after your walk.
- The Giant’s Causeway, the famous legendary site where an Irish giant built his way to Scotland… or you know, erosion happened. Anyway, it is a great site to go to but unfortunately for us, I rained cats and dogs JUST when we went there. It was sunny before, it was sunny after, so I guess we were just not welcome here
The famous rock formations are exactly as you imagine it: odd and impressive at the same time. It is nice to walk on the seaside too (even if it would have been nicer to walk under the sun). There are also shuttle buses if you don’t wan to walk, but honestly it is a 10-15min walk. Visiting the Causeway is free, but you can also a Visitor Center (not free) where you can gather more information about the causeway and buy souvenirs. There is a pub near the parking if you want to grab a beer or a hot beverage after your walk! (careful, they use £ in Nortern Ireland, not €) - Dunluce Castle, huge ruins above the sea. I think it’s a cool place, but we were soaking wet after the Causeway’s rains and were kind of grumpy for that visit. You can take cool pictures of the ruins tho, buy souvenirs at the shop of play with the archeological tools and medieval outfits available.
The tour includes a stop to a pub for lunch, but you can also bring your own food, no worries.
Renting a car and visiting these locations must be cool as there were some extra possible stops on the roads we couldn’t do with the bus, but you won’t get the driver’s stories and you will probably take more time as you won’t have the tickets pre-ordered at the bridge, you will want to stop more and maybe take more time in each site, so maybe take 2 days for Northern Ireland if you go on your own.
We woke up at 6:30 this morning and got back in Dublin around 7PM, had lunch and a few beers in a pub and went back to the hotel.
Saturday - Dublin
I love Dublin, I really do. It’s a small capital so you can basically walk evreywhere if you want to. The weather was on our side, so we walked!
We took our time in the morning before going to the Guinness Storehouse. You can go whenever you want, but I’d advise you to book before arriving there for a faster check-in. Prices vary regarding when you go, so booking online will help you know how much you’re going to pay for your visit.
The ticket includes a pass to enjoy a good old Guinness in one of the many bars. We chose the Gravity Bar on the top, where you can have the best view of the city!
The afternoon was well spent, wandering in Dublin. We saw street art (lots of it), street artists, and gosh it reminded me how much I love this city!
On the evening, we went to Cruachan’s 10th anniversary concert. If you love celtic/folk metal, this band is for you, with Skyclad and Waylander to open the show! What a night!
Sunday - Dublin in the sun
We keep on walking our daily km (lt me telle you I had wonderful legs when I came back from this vacation). Saw some more street art, shopping in geek shops (I found cute Pusheen accessories I wouldn’t find in France, that made my day) and went to several parks.
Phoenix Park is huge! You can see deers wandering here IF you go early in the morning. Which we didn’t do, so we just walked in the sun with no deers to see.
Merrion Square was really nice, with a lot of fun/weird statues, including one of Oscar Wilde. Plus, it’s just next to the National Gallery and not too far from St Staphen’s Green, where you can rest on the side of a lovely lake or walk to find all the statues “hidden” in it.
On the evening, we thought we would end the week-end on a fun tone and took a ticket for the Gravedigger Tour: a 2h ghost tour to understand what happened during the Great Famine of Ireland. I know, the theme isn’t that fun, but the ghost who tell the story is, and he’ll take you to grab a beer between 2 stories! The tour will take you to places of Dublin that you wouldn’t find in the average city guide book and it’s only 25€, so I would really recommend it!
Monday - cheap Dublin
We were supposed to go to the Connemara that day. Buuuut our foot hurt and we didn’t feel like waking up at 5AM so we just ended up visiting parts of Dublin we didn’t see yet. We grabbed a city guide and just looked at every free thing we could do that day:
- Trinity College - this one was disappointing. You can indeed enter the college and wander in the patio for free, but any entering in the buildings comes with a fee. The book of Kells costs about 14€ to see, it was raining, there was a never-ending queue, so we left.
- Dublin’s Castle - quite a deception even if it’s cute I though it would be bigger. In comparison of French Castles I had the occasion to visit, I mean. The gardens are cute tho!
- City Hall - quick visit but very nice, I loved the cupola!
- Looooooooots of street art, I’ll let you find those locations by yourself.
- St Audoen’s - we couldn’t enter because it was under renovation, but it was beautiful and huge even from the outside!
Tuesday - Galway Girls
We were supposed to rend a car, but we finally took a bus to Galway, which sounded more convinient. We arrived around noon with the intention to just visit the city but we didn’t know what to do the next day. A quick stop to the Tourist Office, next to the train station, helped a lot: there are several Irish Day Tours departing from Galway, we have a choice between Connemara and Moher, but I’ll talk about that later.
So we spen the afternoon in Galway. Cute ittle town, but it was litteraly crowded with tourists (thanks Ed Sheeran? ahahah). While Dublin was probably too, Galway is smaller and it’s easier to spot on your fellow tourists while walking down the colourful streets. It was windy, VERY windy. We didn’t fear the wind so we walked to Mutton Island to enjoy the sea side and the huge waves on the pier.
I wanted salmon for dinner. Who doesn’t love a good Irish salmon? I didn’t think it would be so hard to find tho. We walked everywhere, read every pubs menus, nothing but common fish and chips. We capitulated and went to a pub, so long for my salmon.
We booked a room at the Glen Oak Lodge, but we saw A LOT of B&Bs that weren’t on Google while we were walking around. Those may interest the backpackers passing by, and may be cheaper than the well-ranked hotels.
Wednesday - STORM!!
Yeah, you saw it coming. It was way too windy yesterday. Storm Ali started during the night and blew over the coast in the morning. We woke up at 6AM for our tour and damn it’s a mess outside!
We have nothing else to do today anyway so we take the bus to the tour. The guide tell us Moher is closed to the public this morning, but there are other things to see during the tour and if the cliffs re-open in the afternoon, we would go. We are fearless, so here we go!
… And we did well. Less than an hour later, the rain stops and the sun shines. Here how the day went:
- A windy day, with a typical 4-seasons-in-a-day Irish weather
- GREAT places, I absolutely loved every stop the bus made: dunduaire castle, poulnabrone dolmen, Kilfenora & Doolin, Moher
- A lunch break in a pub where I could finally eat a proper Irish Salmon with delicious mashed potatoes
- Moher, where we had a wonderful walk under the sun and above the sea. The wild, wild, after-storm sea.
Thursday - I’ll be back
Time to go home. We took a bus back to Dublin, went to the airport, and that’s it.
I will absolutely go back, probably to visit Kilkenny, the Connemara, Cork… Who knows?