Best of Ireland

Rick Steve's 14 Day Tour

The Group

Genevieve and I

Genevieve and I spent 17 days in Ireland and 14 of those on the Rick Steve's Best of Ireland tour this past summer (2006). We arrived a few days early in Dublin to recoup from jet lag. Our tour was from August 20th to September 2nd. Here's a look at our group (enjoying a bit of Bailey's Irish Cream). The navigation bar above guides you through our trip (left to right, top bar to bottom).

The group at the Cliffs of Moher

Back row from left to right: Suzanne, Gus, John T., Jenny, Bruce, Vicki, Bonnie, Jerry, Jane, Matt, RJ, Ron, and Janine (assistant guide).

Front row from left to Right: Ida, Sue T., John D., Janet D., Deborah, Stella, Julia, Genevieve, Anthony (I'm kneeling), Jean, Rosemary, KC, Janis, and Maura.

Our Fearless Leaders

Patrick, our tour guide, took the group photo above so here's a picture of Janine,  our bus driver John, and Patrick. John is perhaps the most skilled bus driver I've ever seen after he negotiated the Slea Head Drive on the Dingle peninsula.

Gen and I have been on Rick Steve's tours before and this group was one of the most fun! We got along with everyone and even have kept in touch with several people after the trip.

Group at Dunluce

One thing I really liked about this tour is Patrick made an effort to get several group photos in different places. He also asked that only one person take a picture and then e-mail everyone afterwards with a copy so that not everyone had to take a picture during group photo time and slow things down. It really made for an efficient use of our time. This group photo is at Dunluce Castle on the Antrim Coast. Patrick is in this one.

Ireland Map

Trip Route 

The Tour

The Rick Steve's site has the official itinerary for our trip so I won't copy it verbatim here. However, in a nutshell, the tour started and ended in Dublin. We traveled in a clockwise direction around the island. The overnight stops were:

  • Dublin (2)
  • Kinsale (2)
  • Dingle (3)
  • Galway (2)
  • Westport (1)
  • Portrush (2)
  • Dublin (1)

Gen and I spent 3 extra nights in Dublin -- 2 before the tour started and 1 after the tour ended.

Trip Photos

The photos on this site are linked to my Flickr photo side (to save space on my hosted web site). If you'd like a bigger picture, click on the photo which will take you to the Flickr page for that picture. On the right side of the page is a link for "different sizes." From there you can download or view different sized images.

There are also links at the bottom of this page to the complete photo galleries from Genevieve and I.