Our Summer Roadtrip to Ireland

We decided to travel up to Wales the day before our ferry crossing to break up the long journey. We stayed overnight in Wrexham, which meant we could also explore some of Wales before heading over to Dublin on the afternoon Ferry. We also treated ourselves and upgraded our ferry ticket to have access to the Stena Plus lounge. I can highly recommend doing this as you then have access to drinks, snacks and get to enjoy a comfortable and relaxed lounge area.

Once in Ireland we spent our first night in Dublin, which was just a stopover, as the next day we were heading over to the west of Ireland to visit Galway. It was extremely easy to disembark the ferry and our hotel was situated just 15 mins away from the ferry port and approximately 10 minutes outside the centre of Dublin.

Galway was fantastic we spent 3 nights in Galway and we stayed right in the centre by the harbour area. It is a very easy city to walk around with lots of shops and restaurants to explore. During our stay in Galway we took the ferry over to the Aran Islands. This was certainly one of the highlights to our holiday. We explored the island with our own private guide in a 4x4 vehicle.

After leaving Galway we headed up to Westport driving through the gorgeous Connemara National Park, with a stop off enroute for a family hike up Diamond hill and a visit to Kylemore Abbey. The scenery in this area is breath-taking and definitely worth a visit. Westport was a delightful Georgian Town to visit and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting this area of Ireland. Whilst in Westport we took a cruise along Clew Bay where we saw lots of seals and also John Lennon’s former island. We also decided to head out for a beach day as well and visited Keel Beach on Achill Island in Co Mayo. This has got to be one of the most picturesque beaches I have been to and certainly the only beach with sheep in the background as well.

Our final 2 nights were spent back in Dublin. Myself and my husband visited Dublin 20 years ago, but this time we had our 2 daughters with us, so we wanted to show them all the sights. We took them on the hop on hop off bus, but the main highlight of our stay in Dublin had to be the zoo and seeing the elephants so happy bathing and frolicking about in the water. My top tip would be if you have got a car with you then you can park in Phenix park and then use the hop on hop off bus to get about. I would check the schedules though, so avoid any waiting about.

We thoroughly enjoyed a visit to Ireland and were blessed with beautiful weather. Driving in Ireland was a real pleasure as well and the roads were a lot quieter than our roads in England.

Once we got back to Wales we gave ourselves a final treat before heading home and visited Gwrych Castle in Wales , which will be very familiar to any I’m a Celebrity fans. Unfortunately we were a couple of months too early to see Ant and Dec.

We will definitely be returning to the ’Emerald Isle’ again soon.