Ireland, Final Post

Well, time to close out our stay here in the Emerald Island. It’s been a wonderful month with some of the best weather that Ireland has experienced this year. As expected, the people we met have been warm and inviting and the places we visited interesting and educational. Absolutely no regrets about this trip. We thought we would summarize our experiences so here goes:

Arrival in Dublin

Simple and easy. Collected our bags, submitted our completed arrival card, 1 per person, to immigration and head to the rental car counter. Couldn’t have been easier.

Rental cars

Same as most places except Visa does not insure car rentals in Ireland so be ready to pay the 30EU per day CDW / Total Coverage fees. If you do, plan on adding about 6 times the daily rate to your car fee (our car was $247.00 base with $1,300.00 CDW/Total Coverage). If you don’t get the CDW, plan on buying the car. At a minimum they will charge your card $2,000.00 until you return and refund that amount if there is no damage. This is not a hold, this is a charge placed on your card, think about it.

Returning the car was easy, simply follow the signs at the airport.

Our car used diesel fuel which is about .10EU less than gas. Still, diesel costs about $4.50 per gallon or 1.19EU per liter. Our total for the month with quite a bit of driving was ~$155.00, not bad.

Roads

What can you say about Ireland’s roads that hasn’t been said before? In a word, adventurous. When the government wants to put a road in they first talk to the land owners to understand their feelings about the project. The O’Malleys, O’Conors, O’Henrys, O’Flahertys, O’Sullivans, O’Shanes, O’Haras, O’Learys, O’Briens, O’Neills, O’Reillys and the Ryans are asked by the Government where they would like the road to be built. All of them answered the same, at the edge of my property, not through it. The government complied and so the roads wind around every plot, acre, tract, and flower garden in Ireland making them extremely picturesque and unbelievably curvy. If you’re out for a drive best take care, read the National Past-time post and plan to take twice as long to get to your destination. If you don’t hit a sheep, you just may get there on time. One other little piece of trivia, in 2014 there were 4.5 million people in Ireland. That same year there were 2.5 million registered motor vehicles in Ireland, that’s a motor vehicle for every 1.8 (round up to 2) persons. That’s a wee bit of traffic.

Rental House

Our house was comfortable, warm and gave us the right amount of space we were looking for in a vacation rental. What was missing, more than we anticipated, was internet access. You may not realize just how much your world is tied to this modern communication medium but once you are without it, it becomes a real challenge to stay in touch. Our assumption that internet access would be widely available in pubs and coffee shops wasn’t quite correct. Some shops did have internet while others were hit or miss, even when advertised. You may want to consider this when looking for a rental property.

Food

Shopping

Grocery stores seemed to be well stocked with most foods familiar to us Yanks. Meats, cheeses, fish, breads, vegetables, milk, eggs all in good supply and fairly close to prices in the US. Do remember to bring your own bag or you’ll need to buy one there. Good selection of reasonably priced beer and wine. Total cost for the month was ~$764.00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meals

Fabulous food loaded with lots of starch. That’s what you get with a meal that consists of 3 types of potatoes and a main. We ordered a meal of bacon (ham) and cabbage and it was served with mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes and fries. Yum! Seriously, the food is very tasty, lots of flavor and just the right amount of 10W30. If you have a food allergy to starch, this is not where you want to be. Then again, you can always have a Guinness. Meats included lamb, pork, some beef usually in a stew, and the all-time favorite, chicken. Seafood was plentiful with trout, salmon, white fish, cod, mackerel and some shellfish such as mussels, clams, and crabs. We ate out a lot so this one was a little more costly with the monthly total coming in around $840.00, or ~$28.00 / day.

A Day of Irish Meals

Start off with a full Irish breakfast consisting of the following:

2 eggs over easy

2 rashers of bacon (more like ham slices than bacon)

2 sausages

2 potato triangle hash browns

1 serving of pork and beans

1 half tomato fried

4 pieces of toast

1 piece of flat, fried potato (under the eggs)

1 slice of black pudding

1 slice of white pudding

Coffee or tea

 

 

 

Next is lunch:

Soup of the day (we really enjoyed the potato / leek soup and the vegetable / cream soup)

Brown bread and butter

Toastie (ham and cheese, onion and cheese (surprisingly enough one of our favorites), bacon and tomato)

Coffee / tea / wine or beer

Dinner

Starters: Mussels, scampi (deep fried shrimp), calamari

Mains: Fish and chips, beef and Guinness stew, Shepherds pie, Irish stew, Bacon (ham) and cabbage, Chicken goujons (nuggets of white meat with mild Cajon seasoning) , lamb, scampi, fish o’the day, trout.

 

 

Sides: carrots, leeks, turnips, cabbage

And potatoes- boiled, mashed, fried – any and sometimes all

Wine, beer

Desert: cheese platter, sticky toffee pudding with praline ice cream and caramel sauce

Clothing

Layers. All that needs to be said about this. Plan on putting on additional clothes if it’s cold, take them off if it’s warm. Best advice we can give you. Oh yeah, it does occasionally rain so waterproof your shoes and have a good rain jacket that you can pack.

Value Added Tax

Never heard of such a critter, must be some kind of oxymoron. Anyway, get your refund card from wherever you buy your first souvenir and have each store enter the tax onto this card for your gift purchases. This tax is refundable to Non-EU citizens but must be claimed in the airport as you depart. Look for the VAT station after entering through security, usually hidden behind a wall or around corners so you just may not try too hard to find it, but it’s there. If you do this at the machine you can have all your VAT credited back to a credit card on the spot, neat huh!

 

 

Cities

Dublin

Dublin is fun. The Temple Bar district is one huge party that starts early in the day and doesn’t end until around 3am when street singing takes place. Music is constant and the people are amazing; warm, friendly, cheerful, drunk but very happy. They also have tons of sites to see so hit the hop on-hop off bus and explore the city. Just remember, don’t get a hotel room on Temple Street, that’s where the pubs are and it’s too damn noisy.

 

 

Belfast

Belfast is a city in transition, slow transition. Once a major blue collar city this town is struggling with bringing back an industry to support its population. Large buildings, 5 – 10 stories or greater, lie empty. Even newer buildings built in the last 10 years have been boarded up with no sign of recent use. Although they may be formally out of the “Troubles”, this city still has scars and memories that will take a long time to heal.

There is a change underway with rejuvenation projects like the Titanic Quarter. Absolutely one of the best museums / experiences in Ireland. If you’re going to Belfast, this is a must see. Using the hop on-hop off tour is a good way to see this city and its historic sites but pass when it comes to the Giant’s Causeway tour. Instead, rent a car and take your time to see what’s important to you. Like I said in an earlier post, our tour gave us 20 minutes at Bushmills Distillery which takes 45 minutes to see and then gave us 2.5hrs at a damn rope bridge, go figure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clifden

Great small town with lots of good pubs and good food. Mannions is one of our favorites with usual pub fare and free WiFi. Guys pub is also good for pub grub and WiFi. Although Walsh’s Bakery was a great place for a croissant or pastry, their WiFi didn’t work the entire month we were there so if you’re looking for that Starbucks like experience, not here. There are also several gift and souvenir stores that actually have very competitive prices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleggan

Nice little fishing village with a couple of pubs, Oliver’s being our favorite. Same story as above, good pub grub, drinks, etc. but be aware that the language may get a little harsh at times. Peter and Noreen, the owners, are very friendly and do their best to make you feel at home. Stop by and have a pint, it’s a good journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Galway

One of our all-time favorite cities. This college town has a really neat pedestrian area that is comprised of artisan shops, pubs and gift stores. Nice place for an afternoon stroll (yep, still strolling) and some people watching. There usually a good variety of street performers as well.

Cong

Nice small town that John Wayne made popular with his movie, “The Quiet Man”. Skip the movie but do see the town. The drive is nice, along Lough Corrib, and the town has both an Abbey and decent pubs. Be cautious of the roads, lots of tour buses so it’s easy to go to Level 3 driving.

 

 

 

 

 

There were many nice towns and villages we visited during our stay but there isn’t time or space to mention them all. Best we can say is do some touring around the island. Once you get the hang of driving on the other side of the road, it really isn’t that hard. Remember, the driver is always in the center of the road no matter where you are driving. If you find you’re driving and near the curb, you’re on the wrong side of the road.

 

Next: Roaming Our Way in Malta