OUR GREAT TRIP

We went to Ireland for the first time, we have tried to go during some years but it had been impossible for different reasons but this summer, Ireland at last!

There are lots of reasons to go there: stunning landscape always green, practicing English in real situations, meeting new people and discovering different customs… In every website that we consulted and everyone we asked about said that Ireland was a charming and a worthy place to go and indeed it is.

We were there for a week and during that time we visited Dublín, Wicklow, Glendalough, Kilkenny, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

DUBLÍN: It’s a modern and cosy city with its uptown and outskirts, main monuments and spots. It is easy to find lots of students and tourists everywhere. There are lots of things to see and lots of experiences to live. We were there for three days, so:

We walked up and down the main streets such as O’Connel Street, Graffton Street, river Liffey and its bridges. Temple Bar is another interesting place to go and very lively at any time.

Gardens like St. Stephen’s Green are prefect places to have a rest sitting on the green lawn after being the whole day walking around the city. If you like practicing sports The Phoenix Park is your place, we were so glad to put our trainers on and run there. It is like La Casa de Campo in Madrid but smaller.

We visited the main museums too and we fancied the National Museum because there was a valuable Celtic treasure of gold jewellery and different objects from the Egyptians and Vikings’ time. In Galicia there are Celtic jewels in the museums too.

If you like Gothic churches and cathedrals you can see lots of them in Ireland. Don’t miss spires, glasses and gargoyles like all of them than you can see in the cathedral of Cork.

Guinness Storehouse, perhaps the most famous place to go in Dublin. We learnt the brewer process of one of the most famous beer in the world. The admission ticket was a bit expensive but if you like beer you should know that there is a cold pint of Guinness included in the price and drink it in the panoramic bar at the top floor meanwhile we saw Dublin city in almost 360- degree angle was a bonus. That part of the city where Guinness Storehouse was, smelt as toasted malt.

We took some photographs in pubs, Molly Malone statue and drank some pints of Guinness too (national Irish drink).

GLENDALOUGH: It is a very charming and romantic place as you can see in our photographs. It is an ancient monastery near by a lake. Some of the buildings are in ruins but there is a curious round tower in the middle of a graveyard full of Celtic crosses.

I enjoyed so much taking pictures, one of my hobbies. I used a small camera instead of my professional camera but I did it quite well. In spite of the cloudy day, the light was excellent for this kind of landscape pictures.

The Garda (Irish police) stopped us before getting there and warned us of taking care of our belongings in the car park and about pickpockets. Honestly we didn’t have any problem but I suppose that there are thieves there as in other countries.

KILKENNY: Small and cosy medieval city with a big castle. It has been altered during centuries, at the beginning it was a fortress and later it was a palace and some time ago a nobility family lived there until it was abandoned. Now restoration has been finished and the castle is a tourist spot.

Here we had a bit of a problem with our rented car, a punctured tyre. It was Sunday so we couldn’t have the tyre fixed that day because nobody worked on Sunday. We tried it in the petrol station and we called to a garage but we had to go to Cork with a spare wheel instead. The hosts of the bed and breakfast where we were going to sleep that night helped us to change the wheel.

It seems to be very common to have this problem in Ireland because pavement kerbs are like walls, some streets are really narrow and don’t forget that we were driving at the left side of the road… Even Irish people said that their kerbs are like swords.

CORK: It is an interesting and lively city. What caught our attention the most was the English Market, a market in which we could find supplies and staples that we had not seen in Ireland until then. We missed some goods like Iberian ham and Manchego cheese. As it is shown in our photographs the price of some articles were more expensive than in Spain.

We met a nice guy that ran a wine business stall. He sold wine from La Rioja but not from Castilla –La Mancha and we suggested expanding his business with Castellanomanchego wine because it is better than Rioja for us. He seemed to be interested in it. We talked about Andalucía because he would like going there and he recommended us not to miss the west coast of Ireland and Galway.

I enjoyed taking photographs of the gargoyles of the cathedral.

We managed to solve our problem with the tyre after all and relax the rest of the trip because we didn’t have any other problem with our car.

We hired our car with a fully comprehensive insurance just in case because it was the first time we were going to drive on the left side. To be honest, I was really surprised when we were told that wheels, losing the car keys and filling the tank with wrong fuel were not insured. What is more, we were told that if we damaged any wheel and asked them for fixing it, the company would charge us 150 Euros extra. It cost only 55 Euros change that unfixable tyre in a local garage.

Now I can understand why our car had four tyres of different brands.

LIMERICK: We stopped here to have lunch in our way to Galway. We only had time to walk around the castle and took some photographs of the river Shannon that was very wide. All the rivers that we saw were large and navigable I suppose that the reason is that in Ireland rains at any time!

GALWAY: It was a bit difficult to find any place to stay because it was the week of the horse races. Every year, people from everywhere of Ireland and out of the country come to see the races and bet, it’s like a tradition. Irish people like betting and indeed it is a legal business established in all the cities we visited.

Of course we took our time in a local pub drinking Guinness. A waitress explained us that getting in the horse racecourse were expensive especially during the Ladies’ Day, one special day in the week in which women wore fashionable hats like in Ascot. We decided to visit the cliffs of Moher and other sites instead.

Also we were told that some ships of La Armada Invencible (ancient Spanish war fleet) were shipwrecked off the coast and some castaways reached Galway looking for help but they were executed. There is an arch at the port called “The Spanish Arch” and a plaque in the graveyard in memory of those soldiers.

CLIFFS OF MOHER: They are said to be the tallest cliffs in Europe and to be honest, they are massive. We weren’t lucky about the weather because it was raining all day and it was a misty day too so we were not able to appreciate the whole sights. In sunny days sights must be stunning.

The visitor centre and its facilities caught our eyes because it was carved in a hill near the edge and indeed, its visual impact was minor. We were told that it was environmentally sustainable regarding energy consumption, waste water and recycling. There were asphalted paths, two car parks, gift shops and a restaurant.

Taking into account that the cliffs are an important nesting place in Ireland I was waiting for a wilder place but I must admit that but for asphalted paths we couldn’t have got close to the cliffs at all, everywhere was covered in mud because of the rain.

The admission ticket cost 6 Euros per person and there was not any place to park (no space) and it was forbidden apart from the car park so we had to buy the tickets.

By the way, there is a large path across the Burren National Park and I think perfect holidays could be walking along the path with our backpacks and our tent.

OUR LAST DAY: We came back to Dublin the next day to return the car and take our flight to Madrid. In spite of having been at the airport in advance to have our boarding passes, we had another problem, “overbooking”. We didn’t manage to print them in advance because we didn’t find an available Internet connection and to make it worse, two groups of students of English came back to Madrid in the same flight. At the end we could take that flight and we sat down at the back with the flight attendants.

CURIOSITIES:

Food: We aren’t used to having such a large breakfast and later only have a small dish or a sandwich for lunch. We usually have a light breakfast and later a large lunch (2 dishes and dessert). Food was expensive as you can see in the photographs of English Market in Cork; fruit

was selling in units not in kilos, there weren’t so many vegetables, we didn’t see so many fishmongers’ in spite Ireland is an island. I imagine that as they have to import lots of goods, prices are higher but it sounded estrange to us that meat and fish were expensive when Ireland is full of farms and cattle and it is surrounded by the sea.

Supermarkets: We missed some products like pulse, rice, different desserts made of milk and different kinds of cheese. On the other hand milk was delicious because it was milked daily so was fresh. There wasn’t any trolley, only small baskets because I think that people usually buy daily and not weekly or monthly like people do in Spain.

Car parks: You should know that depending on the part of the city or also the city where you park your car, one hour can cost between 1.50 Euros to 2 Euros and if you don’t pay it and park without the ticket, your car can be clamped. Release it costs about 70 Euros and you have to call the Garda and pay the fine on the spot.

Petrol: It is more expensive than here too, about 1.60 Euros per litre. We were told that the majority part of the price were taxes.

Houses and flats: In general prices are more inexpensive than here or at least more reasonable. We had a look onto some state agents and the average price for a cottage of 3 or 4 bedrooms with a garden was about 130,000 Euros, depending on districts, cities or demand.

I don’t know what is the average salary or wages in Ireland but I suppose that it must be higher in order to bear those prices and taxes. Same years ago a friend of us were there and he was very surprised when we told him about the prices, he said they had been similar than here. Perhaps our current European economic situation has the responsibility of these prices in Ireland and unfortunately, this is something that is going to happen in Spain too.

Driving: It was a bit complicated to get used to driving on the left side and using the car gears that were on the left side of the car too, but after two days we managed to do it perfectly. I must admit that during those two days we felt like beginner drivers again.

In general, Irish drivers are polite and patient I think they are used to dealing with foreign drivers. They prefer driving without stress even in big cities like Dublin. This is a good point for them!

Irish personality: Their personality is very close to our personality, they are open and friendly. I think they are more respectful with the law than us and I have the feeling that in general, they don’t try to cheat you and I think they are less roguish than us too. It seems that their law is harder than ours. The Garda police officers didn’t carry guns and it was common to see them alone in the street. We didn’t see so much of them in all the cities where we stay and on the roads either, at least got dress like police constables.

Weather: It is very different from Albacete, it is very close to the weather in Galicia but chillier and rainier. It rained almost every day and it rained the whole last two days. Irish people found difficult to believe that in Spain temperature raises to 40 degrees in summer while in Ireland temperature is usually below 22 degrees in summer. We needed long sleeve garments especially at night, as you can see in the photographs.

They miss the sun and we miss the rain. I was so glad to see such a green landscape and a wide range of deciduous trees like enormous oak trees and lime flower trees. I’m sure that there were lots of different kinds of mushrooms too. On the contrary, it isn’t possible to grow as many different kinds of fruit and vegetables as here because of the weather.

A kettle in every room: In every hotel and bed and breakfast house where we stayed there was a kettle, free bags of tea or coffee, milk and biscuits or sweets. It was very nice having a mug of hot coffee meanwhile we were chilling out watching telly or speaking about our day.

HOTELS AND BED AND BREAKFAST HOUSES:

We recommend all the places where we stayed. All of them were clean and cosy, the staff was polite and kind and all of them offered the traditional Irish breakfast (coffee or tea, milk, sausages, bacon, eggs, tomatoes), toasted bread with butter and jam, cereals… Something new for me that I could try was “porridge” that is a special mixture of oats milled, milk or water and sugar or honey.

Dublin: Beresford Hotel in Store Street. It is near the river, the bus station and Custom House.

Kilkenny: Dunboy Bed and Breakfast in Parkview Drive, Freshford Road. It is in the outskirts and it takes you about 10 minutes to go to the city centre on foot.

Cork: Jury’s Inn Hotel in Anderson’s Quay. It is near the port. The car park is free.

Galway: Almara House in Merlin Gate. It is in the outskirts and it takes you about 10 minutes to go to the city centre by car but there is a bus stop opposite.

I hope you have enjoyed this report and I would like to encourage you to go and discover Ireland.