Meet your Tour Director and check into hotel
Dublin City Walk
O’Connell Street, Parnell Square, Henry Street

Details: Dublin City Walk
Get a friendly introduction to Ireland’s capital city, compliments of your Tour Director. Discover an international urban scape of Georgian buildings, castles and cathedrals. Literary legends and budding musicians. All while one million people welcome you with smiling eyes. Stroll bustling O’Connell Street, once (at 150 ft wide) the widest street in Europe, and still the busiest thoroughfare in Dublin. Pass shop after shop of local and global wares and flairs, and a lush street-meridian lined with tall trees and ebony statues of Irish leaders. Make your way to the end of the strip to Parnell Square, an antique scape of red brick townhouses and classic Irish theaters. As you wander the streets, take in the international glamour of Ireland’s most cosmopolitan city.

Details: Dublin Guided Sightseeing Tour
Join a professional licensed tour guide on an adventure to Dublin’s finest attractions. Pass the residence of Ireland’s president, Mary MacAleese, along your journey through Phoenix Park. Within Europe’s grandest enclosed park, encounter 1,760 undeveloped acres scattered with cricket pitches, grazing cows, and red deer. Stop to eye a stone phoenix rising from flames atop the Corinthian-style Phoenix Column. Tour the roads along the River Liffey to 12th-century St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest of its kind in all Ireland. Get a glimpse of the neighboring park where St. Patrick (who brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century) baptized converts. Continue on to Trinity College, the stone-clad sprawling campus where Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett studied. Stop by the Long Room in the Old Library for a zoom-view of the illuminated edition of four Gospels, the Book of Kells. The original manuscript was penned in Latin around AD 800 by four Irish Monks who used multicolored ink from plants and bugs. Take some time to study the brilliant latticework of curvy Celtic symbols woven with animal figures that enlivens the script.

Dublin Guided Sightseeing Tour
Phoenix Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity College Book of Kells visit
Traditional Public House Dinner

Travel to Galway
Knowth Excursion

Knowth is a complex of prehistoric passage tombs just west of Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland. Dating from about 3000 BC, Knowth consists of a large central mound surrounded by several smaller ones. It is especially important for its rich collection of megalithic art, which includes over 300 decorated stones. The central mound contains two passage tombs, entered from the east and west.

Galway City Walk
Spanish Arch, Quay Street, St. Nicholas’ Church, Eyre Square
Connemara excursion
Kylemore Abbey visit

Details: Galway City Walk
Meet and greet the bayside city likened to San Francisco on a friendly foot tour led by your Tour Director. Discover a traditional Gaelic culture turned trendy with college students, artists and writers in the midst of a buzzing Bohemian culture of 50,000 people. The journey begins at the Spanish Arch (actually a pair of stone arches speckled with greenery) constructed to guard the quays where Spanish merchants docked their boats. Stroll along residential Quay Street into bustling High Street, a micro shopping mecca lined with all kinds of shops, coffeehouses and outside eateries. Venture outside the buzz and discover a one-of-a-kind pyramid-shaped spire atop Ireland’s second largest medieval parish house, St. Nicholas Church. Meander through Eyre Square’s Kennedy Memorial Park, a green oasis where locals gather to lounge, socialize and attend musical performances. Bordering the lush grounds, find the 17th-century Brown Doorway, a real entryway transported in 1900 from its original location at the Brown Mansion. Another highlight is the original set of cannons from the Crimean War, and the bubbling fountain adorned with a steel sculpture of a traditional broad-masted ship (hooker).

Details: Connemara excursion
Venture outside city limits in search of Ireland’s mystical nature. Visit the surreal town of Connemara where ancient Irish is softly spoken. Sense her haunting nature as you survey the jagged coastline of rocky beaches, twisting roads, rippled bogs and windswept heather. Next stop, Kylemore Abbey. Tucked inside a hidden valley along the lush banks of Lough Corrib Lake, it’s like a vision from a fairytale dream. Outside you’ll discover the look, feel and scent of a real Victorian garden. Inside, you’ll find a larger-than-life residence run by an order of Benedictine nuns, and one of the most prestigious international schools in Europe. The infamous prose Yeats wrote while gazing at the river says it all, “peace comes dropping slow”.

Travel to Killarney via Cliffs of Moher & Limerick

Ring of Kerry excursion
Visit sheep farm

Details: Ring of Kerry excursion
Get a true feeling for Ireland’s emerald beauty on an excursion around the Iveragh Peninsula on the panoramic coastal route, Ring of Kerry. Along the 112 miles of breathtaking views, you’ll spy 360 degrees of the vast Atlantic Ocean, the Lakes of Killarney, the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks (Ireland’s tallest mountains), and every shade of green known to the Emerald Isle.

Details: Visit sheep farm
Mountain sheep have dotted the hills around Killarney for ages. Come face-to-face with these fluffy landmarks at a traditional Irish sheep farm.

Travel to Dublin via Blarney Castle
Blarney Castle visit

Details: Travel to Dublin via Blarney Castle
On your journey to Dublin, stop for a visit to Blarney Castle, the medieval stone structure built on solid limestone around 1466. (The slivers of windows served as a defense, enabling Lord Blarney and his men to shoot arrows at invaders while staying protected from within.) Climb the spiral staircases to the top of the castle to kiss the Blarney stone. Legend promises that if you lean backwards and kiss the stone upside-down, you’ll be granted the “gift of the gab” (the privilege of babbling questionable commentary for seven years). Before you leave, wander the path to Rock Close to ponder the druidic circle of mystical stones. Enter Lord Blarney’s dungeon if you dare...

Details: Blarney Castle visit
Stop for a visit to Blarney Castle, the medieval stone structure built on solid limestone around 1466. (The slivers of windows served as a defense, enabling Lord Blarney and his men to shoot arrows at invaders while staying protected from within.) Climb the spiral staircases to the top of the castle to kiss the Blarney stone. Legend promises that if you lean backwards and kiss the stone upside-down, you’ll be granted the “gift of the gab” (the privilege of babbling questionable commentary for seven years). Before you leave, wander the path to Rock Close to ponder the druidic circle of mystical stones. Enter Lord Blarney’s dungeon if you dare...