So – 1300 miles and 35 hours in the car and we successfully travelled from North Wales to Dublin – Belfast – Derry – Sligo – Galway – Limerick – Cork – Rosslare. We saw a real variety of scenery, some stunning, some rubbish – and in all it was a good trip. For me though, Ireland is just like Pembrokeshire – some of the things are bigger (Cliffs of Moher) and some of the specific things are not in Pembrokeshire, but in all, the scenery was very much like Wales, and in my opinion the villages are far better in Pembs.
The good things were:
Dark Hedges – loved it, natural and free – it was brilliant.
Giants Causeway – just so impressive, it takes a while to really appreciate how special it is
Galway Town – great place, what Ireland should be like
Churchtown – something about that graveyard
Blarney – over priced, but I liked it
The bad things were:
The “villages” were mostly horrible – I expected Cotswold type places, instead they looked like Glasgow sink estates
The rope bridge – massive rip off, far smaller than you could possibly imagine
The new “visitor centres” which have sprung up and the health and safety nonsense with has grown up around them
The cost – beer and food were about a third more expensive than here
Best Town – Galway
Worse Town – Limerick
Best Hotel – Cork/Raddison
Worse Hotel – B+B then Menlo
Best Food – Pizza Express! Or Galway
Best Site – Giants Causeway
Would I return?
Yep – in a couple of years perhaps, would like to revisit Galway, skip Limerick and base myself somewhere in Kerry. This is supposed to be the best area, and we didn’t get to see it at all this time.