We landed in Dublin in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, and took a long nap. If you have the energy I would recommend a tour of one of the breweries!

A great little pub for an authentic experience is The Cobblestone, it’s pretty local and has great live music. Don’t expect a seat or food though, it gets pretty packed!

 

We only stayed in Dublin one afternoon, cities aren’t really our thing! We left early and headed to the Powerscourt Garden and Mansion. It was beautiful even in the rain. They also have a wonderful cafe there. Make sure you stop and see the tallest waterfall in Ireland right there!

 

 

 

 

Images From Powerscourt

After that you have two choices, you can go through the Wicklow Mountains National Park (that’s what we did!) or head right to Kilkenny. It took us too long to get through the National Park and we had to go all the way to Cork that night, so we skipped Kilkenny. If we could do it again we would add extra time and go to Kilkenny + the Rock of Cashel.

Images From Wicklow National Park

We stayed 2 nights in the Cork area. The first day we explored the town if Kinsale (highly recommend it was so adorable), Cork (I would skip this, all chain stores and big city), and Cobh (highly recommend! Do the Titanic experience, it’s the last place the Titanic docked before sinking).

Images of Kinsale

Images of Cobh

Our second day we headed off to Kenmare (highly recommend, such a cute town!) and if we had had more time we would have gone to the Ring of Kerry. Instead we went from Kenmare to Killarney National Park, the town of Killarney (good place to stop for lunch and a walk around), and ended up in the town of Dingle. I would highly recommend stopping at the Muckross Estate and Ross Castle when heading through Killarney. We did sunset at the classic harbor overlook. The Dingle Peninsula was AMAZING and we loved spending time there.

Images of Kenmare

Killarney National Park

Sunset at Dingle Harbor

We got up early the next morning and did the Slea Head Loop. Make sure you stop at the Devil’s Horns and take the hike up past the sheep pastures. It’s a little steep but the views are amazing.

Devil’s Horns Hike

 

Leaving Dingle we went through the Connor Pass, the highest roads in Ireland and the views were beautiful there as well. We continued on to Galway, stopping at the Cliffs of Moher for sunset. If you get extra time I would recommend Doolin Cave too. It’s a little known spot and less than 300,000 people have ever seen it.

Connor Pass + Cliffs of Moher

We stayed overnight in Galway 2 nights.

The next morning we got up and took the ferry to the Aran Islands. I can’t recommend enough getting there EARLY. They oversold our ferry and we had to wait for the next one and really screwed ourselves over. If I could go back and do it again I would say take the first flight out and either rent bikes or do a horse drawn carriage (that’s what we did! If you go that route look for a red cart pulled by a Gypsy Cobb, that’s Princess and her owner Mike is great!). Spend the day exploring the island, it really is beautiful.

Aran Islands

On our last day we left Galway and headed to the Connemara National Park (Jersey was a Connemara so this was special to me!). Make sure you leave some time for hiking, it’s a gorgeous place and you don’t want to run through too fast! We spent a ton of time at the Kylemore Abbey and went through the Connemara Loop. It was great!

Connemara National Park

We headed back to Dublin for the night and took the first flight out the next morning.