My husband and I are planning our 35Th wedding anniversary in Ireland this summer. It is a return trip. The first was magical, yet rushed. We'd like to slow it down a bit. We are flying through Dublin, even though we plan to spend time in the west. We are not keen on driving a car in Dublin and would prefer both car rental and return outside of Dublin. We've been trying to work with a booking agency but finding it maybe a little too canned.
Tentative timeline
Day 1 arrive Dublin early am. Take train to cork. Rest, explore cork city. Sleep cork city
Day 2. Pick up car (can you pick up car on Sunday?) see Cobv, distillery, and drive up to Mitchellstown for family history research. Sleep cork city
Day 3-5. Three nights in Dingle explore all things dingle, including Officer tom Collins and the great blaskret islands.
Day 5-8. Here is where it gets tricky. My choices are to explore Kilkenny for one night or two and drive back to Dublin ( his preference in not to drive- bad experience, but hey, he's got practice, right? Option two would include 2 days in Claremont (Doolin and Ennius, perhaps) , then up to Galway one night and take train to Dublin. We've seen the cliffs of moher ( breartgreat-taking) and a tour bust though commemorate
Day 9 SLEEP I. DUblin
Day 10leave.
Car 7 nights
Thoughts?
Also, recommendations for places to stay I. Dingle, cork , Clare, Kilkenny?
As I mentioned we have been talking to a travel agent mostly by email. He has some strong ideas about our proposed itinerary. I don't think that the car rental place his company uses provides for renting and returning cars in different cities. He's putting a bit of pressure on us to lock it down ( we have not given him a contract yet) the thing is that we've seen the cliffs of moher , conomera and Kylemore Abbey. It's gorgeous, but a repeat we did miss the Burren. But Kilkenny looked like fun, not so big as Galway.
We like scenery, ancient items, and the pubs - traditional irish music and meeting the local folk.
Should I ditch the agent a strike out own - not afraid to do that. Would it be unethical to book rooms where they have made a registration, even if the site was my suggestion.