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People: The Irish people are just delightful. They always seem happy and will always great you with a smile. What is interesting is that there are a lot of immigrants in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and they all seem happy and glad to see you. Sure, it’s because we are tourist and leaving our money, but it was more than that, it seemed very genuine, and heart felt.
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Countryside: I have never seen so many shades of green as I saw in Ireland. The many fields were separated by what is called a “dry-stone fence”, a rock fence what was built by stacking rock on each other without any mortar. They were also known as a famine fence was the name of a dry-stone fence that the wealthy landowners hired to be built during the potato famine. There was a particular need for the fence, but the landowners wanted a way to employee people so they wouldn’t starve and so they were hired to build dry-stone fences. Nevertheless, Ireland is green rolling hills as far as the eye can see. Absolutely beautiful!!!
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Cities: The cities, specifically Dublin and Belfast, were not as impressive. In general, there were good parts with the old architecture and perfectly manicured parks. Then there were the tourist districts that were crowded, typically a little “trashy” and packed with various ways to separate the tourist from their money. We both felt a little dirty just walking around these areas. Not impressed.
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Hotels: Tauck did a fantastic job of choosing hotels for out visit. As I have come to expect all the hotels were 5-Star+ hotels, with the exception of the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis. I’ll overlook that minor slip because it was only for one night and it was redeemed with the great dinner, Irish music, and river dancers. I particularly was overwhelmed with the Ashford Castle and the Lough Este Castle hotels. The blending of the medieval architecture with modern conveniences and elegant restaurants was spectacular. A true example of how Tauck exemplifies one of its sayings, “Travel beyond ordinary”.
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Tauck: This is our tour with Tauck. It was very different from our river cruise and Africa trip. Different primarily because of the amount of travel on a bus. Tauck did their usual job of exceeding our expectations. They connected us with a fantastic tour director, Madeleine, and many local expert guides. Madeleine was passionate about Ireland and Northern Ireland, she was well organized, and always would be looking out for the safety and well-being of the individual travelers. She added content and culture to our excursions. On occasion we were serenaded with her individual harp and Irish songs. Tauck continued to surprise us with the unexpected. We have gotten to the point where we “expect the unexpected”. As I mentioned, this was our third trip with Tauck, and I cannot foresee travelling with anyone else in the future, ever!!!
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The Fellow Travelers: We had the pleasure to sharing this trip with a lot of very interesting folks. We traveled with Oral Surgeons, Attorneys, Judges, and a Warden, just to mention a few. All were very interesting and it was great to get to know their backgrounds and their life's history, at least in an abbreviated version. The was one gentleman that just "tickled" me immensely. He was a retired Judge, but loved wearing unusual socks (See pictures below).
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Tour Guide: Madeleine Doherty, was very Irish, very knowledgeable, very organized and was always looking out for each of the guest individually. She was a bit of a contradiction to me. She had tremendous organizational skills, and always was paying attention to the details. Yet, she was a talented "Therapeutic Harpist". These two talents usually don't go together, but she pulled it off flawlessly. In a word, she was great.
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Overall Trip: This trip was unusual in many ways. It had been postponed for two years because of Covid restrictions. I was recovering from back surgery a year earlier and battle significant knee pain (I plan on having knee replacement surgery on both knees when I get back). So, a lot of walking was not my forte, although my pedometer said that I did walk over 40 miles in 15 days. In spite of the challenges and delays this was a great trip, and I wouldn’t want to miss the experience of Tauck, the Irish people and the views of the “Emerald Isle”.
