A 10-day Jaunt Around Ireland

Though we live in Italy, we love Ireland a lot, and we’ve visited there more times than we can count. Our small-town Ireland guidebook covers a great deal of territory – the whole island, in fact – and many, many wonderful places, but we feel an urge to visit as frequently as we can, to check up on old places and discover new ones, for ourselves and for our Itinerary Service clients.

Our flight plan to Ireland was challenging, due to some airline schedule changes after we purchased the tickets. (Thanks, RyanAir!) Our flight out from Rome, instead of leaving at a reasonable hour as we had initially arranged, took off at 6:00 AM. This meant finding a place to stay overnight very close to the airport, so we could get up at 3:45 the next morning and get to the airport by 4 AM. Not the best way to spend your first day traveling. 

But we made the best of it, driving down to Fiumicino and checking into a hotel a block from the quayside. This was, incidentally, also a block from the hotel where we stayed last December on our way to visit the US. On that trip, our luggage was stolen from our car overnight! This time, we made sure that the place we were staying had secure parking; and in fact it was a lovely little place. So we did a bit of bar-hopping and snacking and people-watching, before turning in and going to bed relatively early, so we could arise and get to the airport in time.

Once we landed in Ireland, the trip itself was exhilarating and exhausting. Unlike the trips we create for our travelers, we stayed in a different lodging each night for ten nights, gradually making a giant loop around the northern two-thirds of the Irish island. A night over a pub and seafood restaurant in the cute coastal town of Howth; then into Northern Ireland (part of the UK) for stays in Downpatrick, Hillsborough and Portstewart; then back across into the Republic of Ireland: Donegal, Kinvara, Ballina, Westport, Liscannor, and finally back east across the Midlands to Mullingar, before flying out from Dublin on our last evening. We visited a few old familiar places, and many new ones for us: Nice rooms above pubs, charming B&Bs, and even a couple of castle stays. 

The sightseeing was spectacular, of course: Abbey ruins, seaside medieval towers, an assortment of colorful street scenes and harbor locations and cliff vistas in various towns and countryside spots. We even met up with some friends of ours, an author and his wife whom we first met (in Pennsylvania of all places!) some 13 years ago. 

And the food! We ate our fair share of full Irish breakfasts, an ocean of fish, and of course an occasional pint of Guinness. We had good pub grub and really nice “fancy" restaurant or gastro-pub plates... and we loved them all.

Upon returning to Italy, we landed in Rome around 1 AM - thanks again, Ryanair! We collected our luggage - which was now stuffed with ciders, beers, chocolates, tea, cheese, and all sorts of other goodies that we can’t find in Italy. By the time we were underway in our car, which had been safely ensconced in the apriprot parking garage the whole time, it was 2 AM. That’s when we discovered that the Autostrada was closed for road work overnight, so we had to drive the winding back roads back to Soriano. Now, normally we love that drive - leisurely, beautiful, through several little towns and across rolling hills of olive groves and vineyards and hazelnut orchards and other agriculture. But in the middle of the night, after a very full day of air travel, it was a bit harrowing. We saw - and luckily avoided colliding with - a couple of cinghiale (wild boar), a deer, and a couple of other unidentified furry critters.

We finally got back to our house at 4 AM. Our cats were confused but glad to see us.