Ireland

On June 11th, 2017 my husband and I finally took the trip we have always dreamed of! This was an early anniversary gift to one another. We will be married 11 years on 11/11 and together for 17 years. We have a lot of ancestors from Ireland. I've always wanted to see where they came from and feel the magic of the land. My husband was looking forward to our independent motorcycle rides and the pubs!

We arrived in Dublin on our first day and spent the afternoon walking around St. Stephen Green Park looking at the birds and admiring the part of town we were staying in. Our hotel was called Brooks and it was in the perfect location! It was walking distance from all kinds of restaurants and shops. We liked that this was a very quaint and quiet part of town, but with all sorts of things to see and do!

Brooks Hotel had beautiful rooms and wonderful staff! They let us check in crazy early, which we were so grateful for! Our plane landed at 7am and we had major jet lag!

At The International Bar in Dublin, I tried my first Carlsburg and they had some delicious stew! I'm usually not a beer drinker, but I was tempted to drink all of my husbands Carlsberg for breakfast AND all of his stew! I soon found that Ireland's signature sandwich is the turkey or chicken and stuffing. It was the only food I wasn't too fond of there. Everything else I tried was AMAZING! It tastes so fresh and delicious and prepared so beautifully! The food in Ireland is NOTHING like you would find in Irish restaurants here in the US!

On the down side of that, waiters and waitresses don't accept tips. So, they work very sloooowly. You have to seat yourself and if you want something, you have to track someone down! We didn't really mind, because we knew they were being genuinely kind and not just working for tips. But, some places took a really long time to get service and our food. We liked that they sat down and chit chatted with us when we did see them though!

On our 2nd day, we took a train to Belfast. The train ride took up a good part of our day and then we had dinner at a place called The Sweet Afton where I had the best meal of my life! It was salmon with pesto potatoes, ratatouille, and binofee (banana and toffee) pie for dessert. I was seriously moaning as I took each bite! I'm sure the restaurant chuckled over it! I also had a few cocktails that were pretty unique! One of my drinks had rose petals on top and I got to try one for the first time! I probably won't do that again haha!

That night, we went to the Arcade Fire concert at Belsonic which was a lot of fun! We love Arcade Fire and thought it was pretty cool that they just happened to be playing while we were in town!

The next morning, we rented a motorcycle (the Irish call it a "motorbike") from Phillip McCallen Motorcycles. We then rode the bike up north to Giants Causeway and stopped at a few sites in between. The coastal drive was absolutely breathtaking!

When we arrived to Giants Causeway, we stayed at the Causeway Hotel which was opened in the 1800's and very beautiful! It sat right along the coast with a lovely view of the mountains and ocean!

We had dinner that night at the hotel which was very tasty! Make sure you make a reservation for dinner if the hotel is fully booked! We were lucky to have most of the restaurant to ourselves! I had the salmon with an olive tampenade and red pepper sauce. Yes, I had salmon again ha! I ate fish A LOT on this trip and I don't regret it one bit!

We got up early the next morning and walked over to the Causeway trails which were located right beside our hotel. It took about 30 minutes or so to walk to Giants Causeway. I recommend wearing your walking shoes, wear layers you can put on and take off, bring an umbrella, and make plenty of time for this experience. We also enjoyed listening to the recorded tour that you can purchase and wear around your neck.

This was one of the most beautiful places that we saw on our trip! Grateful that we missed some of the huge tours that came through right after we did. Most of the tour buses seem to arrive in the mornings.

So, if you want a more intimate experience I would recommend visiting some places later in the day. Just make sure you find out what time they close! We found that a lot of places close early. My husband and I were both very happy that we chose to travel independently rather than with a tour group. It gave us so much flexibility to do our own thing.

The background in the photo above is so beautiful that it looks fake, right??! I promise you, it is real!!! I didn't use my flash here, it was just the sun shining on my husband! I was a bit bummed, I didn't bring much camera equipment with me on the trip. But, at the same time I'm glad I didn't focus too much on taking pictures.

I was so sad to leave Giant's Causeway! You definitely need to spend more than one day there! I would recommend a few days to a week at least! I would go back and stay there forever haha!

We got back on the bike after visiting Giant's Causeway and headed to The Dark Hedges which was about 20 minutes away. The Dark Hedges have been seen in the hit series Game of Thrones.

There was also a beautiful fairy garden close by which we walked through to get to the Hedges. Unfortunately, I was unable to get photos of the Dark Hedges or fairy garden on my camera. It was raining when we left the bike and I didn't want to chance it getting ruined. Next time, I will definitely buy one of those plastic covers for my camera! I was at least able to get some on my phone!

Fairy Garden

After our visit to the Hedges, we ate at a place called The Scullery at The Hedges Hotel. It was a beautiful restaurant and they had very good food! We were very under dressed in our bike gear, but they didn't seem to mind!

We then got back on the bike and rode towards Killybegs where we stayed at the Tara Hotel. On our way to Killybegs, we decided to stop at the Cliffs at Slieve League. WOOOW-WEE what a place to see!

At first, we were going to walk up the cliffs. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into! Thankfully, a nice Irish man stopped us as we began our hike and told us that we probably didn't want to walk it. We took his advice and SO glad we did! We started laughing as we got over the first hill on the motorcycle, we would have never made it to the cliffs! It was steep hill, then valley, steep hill, then valley over and over again!!!

It was a beautiful ride on the bike and when we arrived at a parking lot, we got off the bike and hiked up the mountain a bit. It was quite an accomplishment for me, I'm a bit fearful of heights. There were no railings either and we were on the edge of an extremely steep cliff! My husband is fearless and he even said, "I have butterflies in my stomach!" It was one of the most wonderful moments of our trip as we sat there on top of the mountain. The first picture at the top of this blog is us very proud of ourselves!

The Cliffs at Slieve Leauge

Killybegs itself was probably the least impressive place that we stayed. It is a cute fishing town, but there wasn't much to do other than that. We had dinner that evening at another hotel close by. I had apple pie for dessert and found that their "pie" is much different than ours here in the US. They don't bake a thick or flaky crust, it is quite mushy. I did however really enjoy my dinner! I had fish once again!

We got up the next morning in Killybegs and biked back to Lisburn where we dropped off the bike. Not thinking, we never checked with the bike shop to see what time we should bring the bike back!

Everything in Ireland closes pretty early too, something that completely slipped our minds! We ended up getting there an hour after they closed and thankfully there was a man sitting in the parking lot who saw us pull in. He opened up the shop for us and offered us a ride to the train station.

My husband asked him if he worked at the bike shop and he proceeded to tell us later that he owns the shop. We found out a few days later from a different shop owner that the kind man who gave us a ride was Phillip McCallen, a motorcycle racing legend in Ireland! We had no idea we had met such a famous man!

AHHH kicking ourselves for not getting our picture taken with him!!! He was such a kind man who really went above and beyond for us! He even walked us into the train station to make sure we knew where we were going! Thank you, Phillip!!! Your bike shop is awesome and we will never forget your kindness!!!

We then took a train from Lisburn back to Belfast and stayed at Fitzwilliam. WOW, beautiful hotel! Super impressed with the room, staff, and the food! I had filet of cod that night with salsa verde sauce, potato croquettes, a bottle of wine, and a DELICIOUS chocolate fondant dessert! The best dessert I've ever had! It came with salted caramel ice cream, raspberry sauce, and some fruit. I was literally licking the plate (after a few glasses of wine haha!).

The next day, we took a train to Killarney. This train ride was quite long and we didn't realize that we had to get off in Dublin in order to get to Killarney. So, that made quite an interesting day of travelling! We found it quite loud on the trains, but it was nice to see people who were actually socializing/being present rather than stuck in their phones.

Once we got to Killarney, we rented another motorcycle from Lemon Rock. They were super friendly as well and we both really enjoyed riding their bike! We took a ride around the Ring of Kerry which took most of the day. It was a beautiful day, very strange weather for Ireland. I believe it was around 78 degrees and we even got sun burnt sitting on a roof top cafe while enjoying Ladies View.

Ladies view was absolutely beautiful! It was so quiet that it felt unreal. It was like we were inside one of my father in laws train show layouts, it looked like one of his back drops!

Of course we had to take a picture of this Leprechaun crossing sign! Ha love it!

I've always wanted to see larger waterfalls, so we decided to stop at Torc waterfall. It didn't disappoint! What a magical place! I enjoyed walking through the forest there and taking background photos for future fairy photo shoots!

The man at the bike shop (I feel terrible that I forget his name! I think it was Teerin. I'm not sure how to spell it!) he recommended we stop at Skellig Chocolate while driving the Ring of Kerry. I'm so glad we took his advice! They give you free samples of all kinds of chocolate to try! OMG THE CHOCOLATE IS INCREDIBLE!!!

We wanted to buy out the whole place, but had no way of taking any chocolate with us. It was definitely going to melt from the heat in our bike luggage! They had so many wonderful unique flavors! They even had chocolate shoes and full sized chocolate soccer balls!

There was a beautiful beach very close by to the chocolate shop. We were a bit bummed we didn't have our swim suits with us! Gorgeous blue waters and white sand! A lot of people had their campers parked right on the beach!

On our ride around the Ring of Kerry, we got to see the Island that was filmed in the Star Wars movies! We also liked that you could take your car or motorcycle on a ferry back to the other side of the ring if you needed to! This is our bike on the ferry below!

Our last day spent in Killarney consisted of walking around the quaint town, shopping, and popping into the local pubs. We also had a beautiful morning walk!

We dropped off our bike at Lemon Rock (awesome bike shop and beautiful bike!) and grabbed a train back to Dublin where we spent our last day in Ireland.

Our last day in Dublin wasn't as great as our first. We ended up staying in a very busy part of the city. It felt like we were right in the middle of Mardi Gras! It was quite loud and we were pretty exhausted by that point. I'm sure we would have LOVE it 10 years ago haha!

I don't believe most places have air conditioning in Ireland. It is normally much colder and rainy. Because it was so oddly warm, the hotel was really uncomfortable. But, we made the best of it by treating ourselves to delicious donuts from The Rolling Donut before getting on our plane! I had one that was nutella filled, YUM!

Sitting on the plane I was almost in tears. I loved Ireland so much that I didn't want to leave! I said to my husband, "Can we just go home, get our son, and come right back??" We joked about moving there one day. There was something so magical about the land, the food, and the people there.

I highly recommend just winging your trips, the universe responded well to my need for adventure! Half of our trip, we had no idea where we were going to stay or what we were going to do! Everything worked out so beautifully! I'm glad I didn't listen to the numerous people who told us not to rent a motorcycle! That was the best decision we could have made!

We weren't super interested in the touristy spots. I really wanted to experience the culture and riding by motorcycle and stopping at random places gave us that experience!

Take that trip, go on that adventure, and leave your fears behind! I promise that you won't regret it! My husband said to me, "This is the kind of trip you take when you find out your are dying and want to fulfill your bucket list." Neither of us are dying and I don't think anyone should ever wait for their death sentence to fulfill their dreams! Although, my health hasn't been well for a while now and perhaps that was the push I needed to GO! No more, "I will do it later" or "I wish I would have..."

My love for travel has grown so much in the past 20 years. We made a promise to each other that we would visit a different country at least every 4 years. I'm looking forward to our next adventure!

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