Here you can browse through my blog posts prior to February 2022. Currently I'm sharing my travel experiences, candid opinions, and what's on my mind solely on my Facebook page. — Rick
(Warning: There’s an amazing leprechaun scene in this clip.)
I’ve been visiting the Dingle Peninsula for more than 30 years. With a new guide (Colm of Dingle Slea Head Tours), I learned of a new sight: St. Brendan’s Oratory. Dingle Peninsula is like an open-air archaeological museum. Imagine monks here, deep in the Dark Ages — over a thousand years ago — stacking these stones.
Anyone can be alone with wonders of the past…but you’ve got to get out and make it happen.
This is Day 69 of my “100 Days in Europe” series. As I travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours, research my guidebooks, and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences across Europe. Still to come: England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and more. Thanks for joining me here on my blog and via Facebook.
Driving around Slea Head on the westernmost tip of Ireland, I’m enjoying the travelers’ hat trick: Venturing along a tiny road, being out in the early evening when things are quiet and the light is nice, and having the company of a good local guide (to do the driving so I can enjoy the view). Without a local guide like Colm (of Dingle Slea Head Tours), you could drive right by the ruined famine cottages and the corduroy fields without knowing that those faint ridges are the furrows planted in 1848, then never harvested and never touched since. (As the population is less than half of what it was pre-famine, that land was no longer worth working.)
We took our Best of Ireland in 14 Days group on the Dingle Peninsula loop earlier. They’re in town enjoying some great seafood, but I just had to make the loop again — so peaceful and so quiet.
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This is Day 68 of my “100 Days in Europe” series. As I travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours, research my guidebooks, and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences across Europe. Still to come: England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and more. Thanks for joining me here on my blog and via Facebook.
I’m having a lot of fun traveling across Ireland on a Rick Steves Best of Ireland in 14 Days Tour. And I’ve been multitasking, using the tour as an efficient vehicle for updating our Rick Steves Ireland guidebook. With every free hour, I’m running around to check out the details.
One of the biggest challenges is sorting through the best restaurants in each town. In this clip, I’m enthusing about the legendary “Fishy Fishy Café” in Kinsale. You have to love a seafood restaurant that puts photos of the men who catch its fish on the wall. (I noticed three generations of Hurleys: Christy, Dave, and Desmond.) This meal is not cheap (about $25), but it’s really good. And biting into a slice of cake-like soda bread, I had one of those déjà-vu-of-the-tongue experiences — reminding me it’s great to be back in Ireland.
This is Day 67 of my “100 Days in Europe” series. As I travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours, research my guidebooks, and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences across Europe. Still to come: England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and more. Thanks for joining me here on my blog and via Facebook.
Hello from the south coast of Ireland! I’m in Kinsale — a charming town of 5,000 people, 25 pubs, and a super-sized history. I’m here with a wonderful group of travelers on a Best of Ireland in 14 Days Tour. I had a lot of fun surprising them at the welcome meeting (I signed up under a pseudonym) and now we’re well on our way.
This little clip really shows the joy of a Rick Steves tour: great group, great local guide, great small town, no stress, and lots of learning and efficiency. Our local guide, the wonderful Barry Moloney, has just shown us the clever “Tumbler Cart” — an 18th-century service vehicle that made the rounds picking up the townfolk’s sewage, then went into the nearby fields to provide the farmers with fresh fertilizer. Now he’s explaining how, in a kind of “Cuban Missile Crisis of the 17th century” for Britain, the Spanish nearly took over this town, which would have given them the naval equivalent of the high ground over England.
This is Day 66 of my “100 Days in Europe” series. As I travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours, research my guidebooks, and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences across Europe. Still to come: England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and more. Thanks for joining me here on my blog and via Facebook.
One of the big new attractions in Dublin is an interactive exhibit called Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum. I had never really appreciated the Irish diaspora until my visit here. With all the anxiety surrounding immigration in the USA today, it’s thought-provoking to learn how many people were just as wigged out about Irish immigrants 160 years ago.
In this little clip, I share how connecting with history in my travels helps give me perspective on current events at home. I’d love to hear about similar connections that you’ve made on the road.
Here’s a sneak peek at the museum’s listing in the upcoming 2018 edition ofRick Steves Ireland:
Epic: The Irish Emigration Museum tells the story of the Irish diaspora and celebrates how this little island has had an oversized impact on the world. While it has no actual artifacts, the museum is an entertaining and educational experience, filling the wine vaults in the basement of the CHQ Building (an iron-framed warehouse from 1820s where the customs house stood on the River Liffey). It uses an interactive, high-tech approach to explain the forces that propelled so many Irish around the globe. Twenty galleries immerse visitors in the emigration experience. Illustrious Irish immigrants featured include labor agitator Mother Jones, Caribbean pirate Anne Bonny, Australian bush bandit Ned Kelly, and musical Chicago Police Chief O’Neil. Historic photos of filthy tenements and early films of bustling urban scenes round out the plight of the common Irish emigrant. And all along, you celebrate the Irish heritage in music, literature, sports, and more (daily 10:00-18:45, last entry 17:00, one-hour tours at 11:00 & 14:00, at the modern pedestrian bridge, a few steps from the famine statues along the riverfront on Custom House Quay, tel. 01/906-0861, www.epicchq.com).
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This is Day 65 of my “100 Days in Europe” series. As I travel with Rick Steves’ Europe Tours, research my guidebooks, and make new TV shows, I’m reporting on my experiences across Europe. Still to come: England, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, and more. Thanks for joining me here on my blog and via Facebook.
