2 weeks in Ireland and Scotland

[Hondaracer]

Back from just over 2.5 weeks in Ireland, Scotland, and then a few days in London before flying home

Our route went:

Flyin into Dublin, rent a car, drive across London to Dingle and the Dingle Peninsula, spend the night there, then drive from Dingle to Cork, use Cork for a home base for 3 full days, then train from Cork to Belfast

Now the route from Dublin to Dingle is virtually right across the entire country, when I was originally researching this trip I asked a few questions on trip advisor relating to the driving portion. In typical trip advisor fashion people were fucking dicks and told me I was driving way too much and that I'm not going to see anything, I'm wasting my time etc.

My reply that driving 3-6 hours is not a long haul in Canada and that can be a normal weekend away was met with the typical sarcasm and disdain.. lol

Starting in Dublin for 3 days:









Whiskey Tour at the whiskey library in Dublin, very cool, quick experience for a history and some education on Irish Whiskeys with a tasting at the end

Frankly didnt have too many overly exciting pictures of Dublin, its mostly what you'd expect, and most guide books etc. Tell you to spend 2-3 days here max, The Guinness Store house is worth checking out, however I felt like the Heineken Tour in Amsterdam was a better overall experience. We spent most of our time walking around and hanging out in Pubs, Dublin and Southern Ireland all are on the Euro so the exchange is OK, typically prices were the equivalent or slightly lower but in Euros, as in most places the price of a beer or a big mac is a pretty good indicator, a good deal on a beer would be 5 euros.

We then rented a car, the whole process was a bit of a headache, we reserved prior to going there and upon arrival the SUV we wanted (a Rav 4) was not available so we were given the typical bait and switch of the "equivalent" SUV, the problem was the equivalents had zero trunk space, We knew 100% we could fit our luggage (there were 4 of us, my parents and my wife and we each had a medium sized bag) As well, the guy at the booth would not accept us declining the optional insurance even though our capital one card specifically states to decline anything they offer. He said Ireland is different however and they require it but after further research our capital one card does cover Ireland, so do your research before going and make sure you go with a rental agency that will allow you to decline optional insurance, this optional insurance cost us another 150 euros on top of the 700 euro rental for 5 days.. We ended up with a Peugeot 300D SUV, which was actually very nice. The downside is the one we originally wanted was an auto, and now we had a right hand drive Manual SUV lol..

So onto the drive, we drove from Dublin to The rock of castle castle in about 2 hours, the main highways, the "M and N" routes on the map are great, fast highways:





its pretty cool and worth a stop if you're around there, but there isn't too much to see

We then continued driving to Dingle, this drive took about another 4 hours due to the roads, they get pretty fucking hairy in some parts and the roads are barely wide enough for 2 small cars, so in a bigger SUV where you barely know where the side is, you've got to slow right down to avoid collision lol..



Dingle is really cool, a stereotypical seaside Irish town, its mostly a tourist spot now but when we went it wasnt overly crowded, had some great restaurants, and very cool pubs, my wife and I wandered the streets at night and ended up finding some amazing "trad" music





Dick Macks pub, probably had the best pint of Guinness I had in Ireland here, a traditional old Pub



We spent a good night drinking and then hopped back in the car to drive the ring around the Dingle Peninsula, This peninsula is an alternative to the Clifs of Moher, and apparently the cliffs of moher are insanely crowded with tour busses etc to the point of adding hours and hours to your trip as it is a far larger ring road and much slower drive. We did this drive in about 2.5 hours stopping 4-5 times along the way. It was pretty cool and had some beauty spots, however, I find natural beauty very hard to be compelled by coming from Canada/BC, but this was 100% worth the time and effort to get and stay here.















an exmple of the roads you have to try and let others pass on during the ring lol, luckily most people both locals and tourists seem to know to do the route clock wise, however you occasionally run into the moron going counter clock wise and in some spots you'd literally have to back up 100+ feet to let someone pass in the opposite direction.

[Hondaracer]

So from the loop we continued on driving towards Cork, stopping in Killarney, we visited some old estate there I forget the name of lol, not worth it.

quick lunch and quick bathroom breaks in between at some small towns we passed through, we got to Cork around 4pm, if you were to drive directly from Dingle to Cork I wouldn't think it would take more than 3 hours, however, again some of the connecting roads are very small as well and this obviously causes you to slow right down.

Cork is awesome, and a great home baser to Visit Cobh and Kinsale, id probably spend minimum 3 night in Cork, you could easily do more just enjoying the city itself, its very laid back with lots of cool spots:







We went to the Greyhound track in Cork, if you ever thought Horse Racing was seedy, this feels seedy AF lol.. This type of thing is obviously dieing and after a few races we had our fill and left, interesting to see however it seemed kinda fucked and the track was run down etc. lol



Cobh, a cool little sea side town and includes the dock where the last passengers bound for the titanic boarded:





Kinsale is just around the corner, approx a 30 minute drive with a small ferry from Cobh, its more crowded with tourists but a very picturesque town, you could probably do a night here if you wanted and fill your time no problem.

From Cork, we then took the train all the way to Belfast through Dublin, in Dublin you have to take a tram to the main station to change trains, the trip takes about 6 hours with the switch. There are very few flights from Cork to elsewhere within Ireland without going to a Heathrow etc. so driving back to Dublin or taking the train seems to be the best option.

Belfast is obviously in "Northern Ireland" and as such uses the Pound instead of the euro. Belfast proved to be maybe the most expensive place of our whole trip (including London..) Im not sure if this is due to the current political situation but prices here were insane.. The pounds exchange rate 1.65+ so 4 of us were going out to a pub or whatever for dinner, and our bill would be like 110 pounds with one or two rounds of drinks ands dinner, that's like $170 fucking dollars for a half ass pub dinner.. it was insane.. honestly almost prohibitively expensive

Belfast, as with Dublin are both pretty dirty, ugly, cities and to me, feel the least like a European city of any I've been to. The titanic museum is truly a world class exhibit and worth the visit. As well, we did a guided tour with a taxi driver of the "troubles" It was fantastic and very informative, we ended up getting a guide who was the number 1 recommended driver on trip advisor and he was awesome

There is still a large wall which divides parts of the city where the division still exists between the loyalist and the people who identify as Irish. As you can see one of the pictures, some of these people who live against the wall have fucking chain link fences over their back yards to deflect bombs and Molotov cocktails tossed over the fence.. Our driver said tensions are actually heating up once again with all the Brexit talk and there are new groups of the "IRA" which don't really have a true agenda but are more like the current day Neo-Nazi's who have an agenda of hate. They recently found a few bombs in Derry, which was the hot bed of the conflict years ago.







An amazing pub, probably the coolest one I've ever been in, the Duke Of York:





And pics from the troubles tour, there are muraled walls like this all over, for both sides

[Hondaracer]

From Belfast we then flew to Edinburgh, We kind of fucked up this part of our trip and only had 2 nights, 3 days here before my parents and my wife and I split up, in hindsight we could have clawed back a day out of Belfast and spent more time in Edinburgh. Edinburgh feels far more European and is much nicer than anywhere in Ireland. The people also were far nicer and were quick to engage in conversation, we met some amazing people in small pubs by our places and spent some late nights playing Jenga with a pub full of people lol.. I wish we had 4-5 days there with enough time to take a bus trip to the Highlands, and the lochs, oh well..



The street that Diagon alley from Harry Potter is apparently based on:





The castle is fucking PACKED with tourists, and honestly there wasnt that much to see, I guess if you're there you've gotta go







The best boy, Greyfriars Bobby



Wife and I then took the train from Edinburgh to London and spent 3 nights there before flying home, Most people know of the typical London sites etc though so I won't bother with all the pics there, except for the sun setting on another euro vacay lol, thanks for looking



Edit* oh and almost all the main sites in London ie. Big Ben etc are completely covered in scaffolding so if your expecting to go and see them, they won't be uncovered for another 2 years

[CivicBlues]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

We then rented a car, the whole process was a bit of a headache, we reserved prior to going there and upon arrival the SUV we wanted (a Rav 4) was not available so we were given the typical bait and switch of the "equivalent" SUV, the problem was the equivalents had zero trunk space, We knew 100% we could fit our luggage (there were 4 of us, my parents and my wife and we each had a medium sized bag) As well, the guy at the booth would not accept us declining the optional insurance even though our capital one card specifically states to decline anything they offer. He said Ireland is different however and they require it but after further research our capital one card does cover Ireland, so do your research before going and make sure you go with a rental agency that will allow you to decline optional insurance, this optional insurance cost us another 150 euros on top of the 700 euro rental for 5 days.. We ended up with a Peugeot 300D SUV, which was actually very nice. The downside is the one we originally wanted was an auto, and now we had a right hand drive Manual SUV lol..

I looked into this as well for a potential trip to Ireland and it looks like it's a common headache for many travellers -agents forcing you to buy unnecessary insurance, hidden costs, charges for damages after return. Did you manage to convince the Car Rental Agency to waive any of the insurance they were trying to hawk at you?

It all sounds sketchy as hell and surprising from a 1st World European country. But then the alternative is taking public transport to and from all these remote places. Would you say that it's doable?

[Hondaracer]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

I looked into this as well for a potential trip to Ireland and it looks like it's a common headache for many travellers -agents forcing you to buy unnecessary insurance, hidden costs, charges for damages after return. Did you manage to convince the Car Rental Agency to waive any of the insurance they were trying to hawk at you?

It all sounds sketchy as hell and surprising from a 1st World European country. But then the alternative is taking public transport to and from all these remote places. Would you say that it's doable?

The problem was in Dublin we were on foot to the rental agency and the next agency was like a 20 minute drive either back to the airport, or the other way. So we were kinda hooped we had expected to rent the vehicle and just get on our way in the morning to Dingle so we just said fuck it and bit the cost. The guy was a peice of shit though who worked at the rental agency and even when I pulled up the PDF for the capital one MasterCard that explicitly says “WAIVE ALL ADDITIoNAL COVERAGE” he wanted a personalized peice from capital one with our names on it stating that. I highly doubt any CC company is going to provide that.

I did a bit of research after that and basically it comes down to finding an agency you know will accept waiving it. There’s almost no other option. Some people on trip advisor etc. had more time than we did and basically shopped around in person until they found an agency that would waive them.

For our Peugeot 300D or whatever the SUV was called (actually very nice vehicle, comfortable to drive with good amenities) it was like $1000 CAD for 5 days..the insurance alone was over a quarter of the rental cost ffs..

There seem to be numerous tours that do this route but obviously far slower and you’re always constrained to the bus etc. also most bus tours regardless of size seem to be filled with elderly people so you’re at their will in terms of getting in and off the bus etc. a lot of the sites they stop at are boring af so I’d think it would feel like wasting your time spending an hour at some old ruins that barely resemble anything lol.

My parents are still in the UK touring Bathe, the Cotswolds, etc. and he said they tried to pull the same insurance shit at a diff agency there on him, I think he had a bit more flexibility and kind of strong armed them into waiving some of the fees but the UK seems notorious for this kind of rental car BS.. it sucks because it’s seemongly by far the best mode to get around.

And like I said, distances aren’t an issue. If you look at a map in terms of where Dublin is relative to a Dingle, 4 hours to get from complete opposite ends of the country is nothing. But yea I think it would be pretty painful on transit or a group tour

[CivicBlues]

For years going to Europe I was constantly declining all rental car insurance coverage because I thought erroneously that I was covered under ICBC roadstar (Only US in reality). I'm pretty sure I was covered by my Mastercard in case anything happened, which never did apart from a few traffic tickets (knock on wood).

But it sounds like agencies in places like Ireland, Iceland, and the UK are at another level when it comes to forcing their insurance on you.