Planning a Trip to Ireland, Need Ideas

[Colin]

Here are the places I really enjoyed:

1. Belfast - so much better than NA media made it out to be. Thanks goodness other travellers convinced us to give it a go.

2. Galway - get a b&b in Claddagh (yes where the ring is from). It's a 5 minute walk to central Galway, a cool university town where you can plan many day trips (Doolin, Cliffs of Mohr, The burren, etc) and some overnight trips (arran islands)

3. Innishmoor (arran Islands) - a few ferry and hotel packages available in Galway's tourist office. It's a great little island, with about 350 residents. You can cycle the whle island in no time, or take a horse and buggy to Don Angeus (and old fort). At night go to the pub outside of town, it's where the locals go and they have trad music sessions almost nightly.

4. Dingle - great town. Where else but in Ireland could you find a town with 1500 people and 56 pubs. A personal fav was Dick Mac's pub. One side is a pub (though snug describes it better) and the other is a leather shop. See if Brian is still running the sleeping Giant B&B in the town, he was a nice guy. Dingle is across the bay from the ring of Kerry and was more impressive according to a few sources. The coach tour to the other side Dingle (it's a small town where it's all still gaelic) was cool. You can even see where Tom Cruise had his house in that stinker of a film Far and Away.

5. Cork - cool town, and it's just a coach ride to Blarney, home of some castle apparently.. The town of Blarney is pretty nice, and if you decide to kiss the stone, remember that the locals pee on it....maybe it's better to just pretend to kiss the stone

6. Dublin - our first night there I didn't care for Dublin. It's full of tourists and it was a pain after 3 days in Belfast. Avoid the Guinness Brewery tour (sorry Mike it was a total waste of cash to do the tour, just hit the pub downstairs for the best guinness around) and if the book of kells is not too high on the list, it is a very long line of tourists trying to read the one open page (no it is not in english). There is a great hop on hop off double decker bus tour that will take you to the brewery, St. Patrick's cathedral, Trinity university, etc. The old post office is neat to see, St. Stephen's green is a nic epark to get a sandwich from one of the loacl delis and to walk around. You will find the old homes of many of Ireland's greatest writters on the border of the park. Dublin is generally pretty cool. We ended our Ireland trip in Dublin and had a great time staying in a hostil right in temple bar. Temple bar has a lot of great pubs with trad nightly. Try an davoid the Harley Bar unless you are home sick, as it's full of Americans eating burgers and such. You can get that at home for a lot cheaper.

I hope these help a bit. Have a great trip. Skip the car and take the caoches. They have a great bus system in Ireland, and it really allows you to see alot of the country you would miss in when trying to learn to navigate driving on the opposite side of the road, on some of the smallest roadways I have ever seen. Rent the odd car for the out of the way trips.