Originally Posted by
Superorb
I love to drive, and I've been driving a 5sp for the past 12 years so that shouldn't be a problem. I'll just have to get used to shifting with my other hand. Often times we'll just go driving to see where it takes us. We like to explore the area and see what we can find. When we moved from the east coast to Colorado we spent 4 days in the moving van and around 8 hours a day driving. Even at the end of day 4 we were happy as clams since the entire drive was new to us.
I like what someone else suggested of staying 2 nights upon arrival as well as before departure in Dublin. We would only hire a car while we were not in Dublin since the transit in town seems to be pretty good.
At this point I'd just like to nail down dates and we can figure out what to do and where to go during that time. We have available all of July and the first week or so of August. Should we be aiming for that first week in July or another week? I'm not sure what's going on or when is a good time to begin our trip.
Given the window in which you can make your trip, I don't think there's anything particularly good or bad about any of the weeks you could start your trip. Although Ireland, especially Dublin, is popular with tourists, there is nothing of the scale of Glastonbury or the Edinburgh International Festival that makes one week or another one to go or to avoid. In fact, in my experience, I've only truly needed to make advance hotel reservations on weekends when staying in Dublin--in almost every other town, I could find some decent accommodations just by showing up. Your need to focus on CC means, of course, that you should line up those reservations as soon as possible.
In addition to accommodations, the
Tourism Ireland website has information on regularly scheduled events, including festivals and the like. By the way, this website has information regarding both Ireland and Northern Ireland. It's no more than a start for research, but it'll help you get a feeling for events that might appeal to you and your wife.