First Thoughts on Ireland

We’re back from our six days in Ireland & I seriously could not be more in love with the Emerald Isle. I’m still a little jet lagged & collecting my thoughts, but here are what’s top of mind:

Everyone is so incredibly friendly. Throughout our trip (unlike with some international travel these days) all the Irish we met were very enthusiastic to talk about us being from the U.S. Many people had traveled here & had questions about us living in Washington, D.C. Perhaps a highlight of US-Irish relations can be found at the Barack Obama (or is it O’bama?) Service Plaza located along the N21 highway. Yup, a rest stop/gas station/US-Ireland history museum all in one.

Ireland could not be more beautiful. The green rolling hills of County Clare. The impressive rocky coastline & soaring cliffs. Even their urban centers like Dublin have beautiful walkable parks.

The pub culture is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced traveling. From the live Irish music in the pubs of Adare to the pub in the tiny town of Bruff that we stopped in one afternoon when we needed a break from driving, craic is fantastic. True Irish pubs have ruined me from ever visiting the Americanized version ever again.

Live Irish Music at Pat Collins Bar from Christina Tuff Saull on Vimeo.

Guinness is so much more awesome in Ireland. One of the first things I did when I turned 21 is order a Guinness at an Americanized Irish pub in Columbus, Ohio. I hated it & haven’t had one since. So imagine my surprise when both B & I loved Guinness in Ireland! It tastes totally different: it’s poured correctly, served ice cold, & has no bitter after taste. We drank our weight in Guinness & other Irish beers, including Bulmers & some great microbrewed craft beer.

The Cliffs of Moher absolutely live up to the hype. The Cliffs are one of those tourist attractions that are on most travelers must see list. Honestly, my expectations could not have been higher, yet they were still blown out of the water. We got there right when they opened – an absolute must to avoid the crowds – & spent over three hours taking photos & hiking along the cliffs.

Dublin was super cute & super walkable. Neither B nor I had very high expectations for Dublin because we knew virtually nothing about the capital city. Thanks to an awesome walking tour on our first full day there, we got the lay of the land & learned a lot about the city. A highlight was seeing the Long Room Library at Trinity College. I may have geeked out a bit over the thousands of books.

Ireland has some amazing hotels. Regular readers know what a hotel-a-holic I am & we stayed in some of the best during our time in Ireland. I’ll be sharing full reviews over the next few weeks on the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin, Adare Manor in Adare & The K Club in Kildare.

Navigating by map is a lost art form. One of the nice things about traveling internationally is the chance to unplug, including not being attached to an iPhone & Google maps. While driving around the country, I put my good ol’ fashioned map reading skills to the test & think I did pretty well! While our car came with a GPS, we only had to use it once to find our way (in defense to me, it was pouring rain & we both just wanted to get to the hotel stat). In the weeks leading up to the trip, I spent a few hours playing with Google maps & plotting out routes for exploration. But those printed directions stayed in my bag in favor for a simple road map. It was glorious.

The A380 is real & it’s spectacular (bonus points if you get that reference!). Allow me a moment of aviation geekery here: on the way to Dublin we flew Air France via Paris on the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus 380. At the last minute, I splurged & upgraded us to business class, which meant foie gras with dinner & lay flat seats for the overnight flight. Flying on this majestic plane was just amazing. I promise a whole post on the experience.

I can’t wait to share some of the thousands of photos I took along with tips & stories so you too can plan an amazing week in Ireland. If you haven’t been yet, it should be #1 on your travel wish list.

Know if you go…
– shop around for plane tickets. We flew in & out of Dublin for the ridiculously cheap price of $300 per ticket. Yours probably won’t be that cheap unless you hit a fare sale like I did, but you can probably get a good deal. Before you book, decide if you’re concentrating on the east coast or west coast, as flying out of Shannon is very convenient if you’re going to be on that side of the country. It’s not a big country, but the drive from Shannon to Dublin takes about three hours.

– when planning connecting flights, know that you go through US immigration & customs before you get on the plane in both Dublin & Shannon, so you land in the U.S. as if it’s a domestic flight. This also means you should give yourself plenty of time at the airport when you’re heading home (we didn’t know this & felt like our morning at the airport was a little chaotic).

– they drive on the left hand side of the road. Don’t let this deter you from a driving heavy itinerary! B did all of our driving & picked it up pretty quickly. Some of the back country roads were a bit tricky to navigate, especially in the places where they weren’t wide enough for two cars to pass comfortably, but we just took it slow & enjoyed the scenery.

– come prepared for rain. The last thing I threw in our suitcase was an umbrella. Thank goodness I did because we used it every single day! We only had one day that was a complete wash out – it literally was raining when we work up in the morning & didn’t stop until after we went to bed. Most days the weather moved through quite quickly (one moment sunny skies, the next downpour), & we got in the habit of taking our umbrella everywhere. Good shoes are also a must: we wore our hiking shoes daily. They’re not only waterproof, but they allowed us to explore castle ruins & city streets in the rain.

– Ireland drinks more tea per capita than any other country in the world, which means if you’re a hardcore coffee drinker like I am, you might be a little sad in the morning. Almost nowhere serves brewed coffee & if they do, it’s probably instant. Try some strong tea for your caffeine fix. Luckily, they also have a great cafe culture with espresso readily available at most places. The hotel in Dublin was even nice enough to make me a “giant American latte” one morning. I am looking forward to my venti drip coffee IV from Starbucks every day this week though :)