Republic of Ireland - Stacked with history and information. (UK & Eire in general)

Name: ste231191

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Product:	UK & Eire in general
Date:	24/10/05 (274 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful views, lots to do, loads of history

Disadvantages: Dublin too crowded

I am writing this review on my latest and greatest holiday, I say abroad which is kind of true but actually I am going to the republic of Ireland, as I am writing this review I'm on holiday and writing it on my pocket PC. This is not such a 'review' it is more about what I did, a diary. I am going to Ireland with all my family except my dad because he couldn't get the time off work but we went with my Nan as part of a birthday present.

-*-*- Setting off -*-*-
We had to set off really early on the Friday morning about 6am but we had to get to the boat for am (in case you hadn't gathered we are sailing to Dublin) we got to the boat at about half 7 which gave us time to sit in the passenger lounge which was not too bad as it had toys for the children to play with, a TV, a few chairs and a coffee machine. We waited in there for about half an hour and then we were on board the vessel. Upon boarding we had to check in at reception and then to find our seats. The ship was totally amazing! I had never seen anything like it there were a few big TV’s a bar, shop and even a football table. It was very cozy inside and even a few arcade games. We knew that we was going to have 2 meals on board but we didn't know that we were going to have a meal before we had even departed and it was sort of a breakfast type buffet that had bacon, sausages etc. And I can say and I'm sure if you asked any people on the ship that it was one of the nicest meals ever had it was much nicer than any packed meals that you can get on the plane I could go on forever which am not going to but to sum up the boat was really amazing. On board the in-store shop all the things there was duty free stuff this was very cheap.

-*-*- Ireland -*-*-

After quite a marvelous trip we got in our car and were off to find our hotel, little did we know that it would be a long trip. But before I go into all that let me tell you what I thought of Dublin, well it wasn't what I would have expected I thought it would be a lot quieter but as it was the capital you may have expected it to be a bit crowded. We got on the right road that we wanted that was towards Bré pronounced Bray in English and our hotel was just outside it. We got to Bray pretty easily but then there was three separate roundabouts and we figured that it would be round here and we were half right but after we could not find it, we turned to the traditional way of asking the locals but we had to ask a few, and after a drive that should of took 34minutes (it actually took 2 1\2 hours.) We had arrived at our hotel the Ramada plaza.

-*-*- Our hotel -*-*-

When we finally reached our hotel we were reasonably satisfied with the standards that were given, the receptionist was very helpful with the check-in and we were fairly swift with everything. You did not have a key to get into the room instead a magnet and when those magnets matched they let you into the room which I found was rather impressive. Everything in the room was very good and the main thing was that it was very clean.

-*-*- Day 1 -*-*-

After a well earned rest we were ready to start exploring Ireland and our first plan was to go to the little and quiet village of Glendeloche which was the type of Ireland I was hoping to get to...

Glendeloche - Pronounced Glen - der lock, you may be familiar that Ireland has a lot of history behind it and one of the great stories was the story on St. Kevin he was a monk and his monastery was in Glendeloche, he educated himself and all of his life he studied biblical scriptures, when we were at Glendeloche we actually visited his monastery and the chapel and it was a totally beautiful site, I can't describe how nice the scenery and settings were, there was a slow running river underneath the monastery, and there stood the oldest Celtic cross in Ireland. It was truly fascinating to learn about the history of how the monks used to hide away from the Vikings and how they led such a simple life. If you ever visit this place I recommend it strongly and it only takes a couple of hours to look round and its about an hour away from the capital Dublin, another reason for visiting this if you don't have a lot of money because it is free to get in.

Gaol - This is pronounced jail in English and that's what it is, the Gaelic word for jail. After we visited Glendeloche the gaol was just 10 minutes down the road, we arrived there and within 5 minutes the tour guide was there to take us around, this wasn't just because we were there with luck but because they have a separate tour guide for each family! But the tour guide only gave us a tour for the first five or ten minutes to give us a but of background information and then it was us who went round and found the information. There was a sheet that you could have done but I didn't because I was on holiday, and you don't write in the holidays you save that for school. So we started our tour about how the jail had developed from crowding all the prisoners in one room into the different cells. One of the cool things that I liked about the prison was the sensors inside the cells and so when you entered they detected you were there and started the audio things. They had life-size models wherever you went just to give you a little idea of what it was like. One of the main things in the prison was torture and as you go round you can actually see them being tortured. I really liked this (like all teenage lads would) but I don't think that it is really suitable for the children that are under five years old, my brother (who is 5) was pretty scared but he got over it. As the prison was actually being used a couple of hundred years ago there is real graffiti scratched in the beds from the earlier prisoners it is really great to read what they were thinking. I reckon that it’s really interesting for people who can understand it. The price to get in was €3.50 for children, €4.50 for adults and €4.00 for pensioners, I think that this is really great value for money for the fascinating information that it provides.

Seafront - After the quite adventurous day at the two locations we settled down to a meal in a restaurant outside the seafront in Bray this is a town that was quite different from Dublin as in it was reasonably quieter and pleasant Irish music playing in the background. It is quite amazing to see the differences between two towns 10 miles apart in that Bray was a lot nicer and quieter.

-*-*- Day 2 -*-*-

Today is a Sunday and what better day to go into the capital, well to be more precise to go to phoenix park, this is the biggest park in Europe and this is what we did...

Phoenix Park - My mum had told me about this, how it was the biggest park in Europe and how she had visited it when she was a kid but I could not of imagined how big it was! It was the equivalent size of Kent! It was humoungous and I didn't know how much stuff there would be to do. But the first thing we did was went to Dublin zoo which was located inside Phoenix Park.

Dublin zoo - If you have an attraction inside an attraction for example if you were at a theme park and there were go karts it doesn't specialize in the karts but in the park. Here in Phoenix Park they had the zoo inside the park and I didn't think that it would be anything special, oh how wrong I was. It was a proper big business and I thought it was a petting zoo! It was the size of Chester zoo and was great fun. In the zoo obviously they had the animals but when you where viewing the animals they had an information board that told you all about the animals like, name of animal, where it originated from, gestation period, diets and a lot more, this was quite interesting information to read. Once you are viewing the animals they have big 15 x 15 foot glass that you can look through instead of a small little tiny window.
If you have ever been to a Disneyland or Alton towers you may have noticed that it has been split up into different worlds (you may not get what I mean but anyway) in the zoo it was split up into different worlds, one of them is called the African Plains and you may of guessed that this was all to do with Africa. Once you enter this world you are taken aback it actually looks like Africa, you can walk round it all but for a cheap fare you can get a train, in my opinion I think this is a better way of getting round because although you can read the very helpful information boards you hear a audio tour and the man has an African voice so it adds that little extra reality. The animals that you are able to see in the African plains and the rest of the park are, Elephants, different types of monkeys, lions, jaguars, sea lions, penguins, reptiles. They do have various shows that go on throughout the day I’m sure that these are very entertaining but we didn't go because we wanted to get other stuff done. The price to get into the zoo is €15 for adults, €13.50 for children under 16, €10.50 for OAP's and children that are under 3 get in free. You can get family tickets and I worked out that these actually are cheaper than paying for them individually. If you are going to go here I recommend that you spend a whole day here not a part of the day like we intended to do.

And this brought our second day in Ireland to a close, phoenix park is the biggest park in Europe and now I’ve seen it I can believe it, this is a great day out for all ages and it is situated about 5 miles just outside Dublin.

-*-*- Day 3 -*-*-

Luckily for me today we didn't have anything planned so that meant that I could stay in bed. But when I finally did decide to rise the family had already planned out what we were going to do. And that was to go to the local aquarium.

Bré sea life center - I had never really been to an aquarium well not that I can remember, and so I thought that today would be pretty exiting day. The aquarium was great, you can probably guess what was there the fish or whatever and a little bit of information. One of the things that I found quite a good idea was they had a fish tank designated to finding nemo. So they had two clown fish that represented Nemo and Marlin, a Blue fish which I have forgotten the name of who was Dory, they had other characters like Bubbles and Jacques the cleaner fish, once you had seen the actual fish and there details I actually think the animators were amazing. Also in the aquarium they had feeding times for the fish and you could watch them.
Another good thing for the kids was that you were given a little sheet at the beginning when you paid and it is a scratch card, but there are questions throughout the exhibition and you get to answer the questions this is a little extra fun for the kids.
Once you get to the end there is a soft play area and although I wasn't really allowed in but I did and it was really fun. The prices for this are €3 for child (under 16) and €5 for adults (over 16) this is a very reasonable price for a great day out.

This is all we did for this day because it took up most of the day. This is a must see attraction if you are around Bray and it is 20 minutes drive out of the capital, Dublin.



That was our last day in Ireland because the next day we got up at 6 am in the morning to get on the boat. It was a pleasant trip home it was as delightful as the first one. My trip around Ireland is probably the best holiday maybe even better than Tenerife because of its history and so much myths and legends that it holds. I have mentioned few places of interest which were totally amazing, I recommend Ireland to all.

And so this concludes my holiday around Ireland I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it, thank you for reading.

Ste231191 ©

Summary: Want to learn and find out amazing things? This is the place for you