Last trip to Ireland to discover Waterford, Mizen Head and Ring of Kerry.

Day 1 – 05/31/18 (Thursday)

As we decided at the last minute to take this farewell trip to Ireland, we ended up renting the car at the airport instead of in the center of Dublin, because the prices were more affordable according to the RentalCars. We thought about visiting new places for us that would be easy to go to with Patrick (our cute 3-month-old baby, for those who don't know) and we put together the following itinerary:

The red dots are our hotels and the green dots are the restaurants.

We left home around 5pm because there was a huge line at the rental company because of the holiday and also because everything takes longer with a baby – hello, explosive diaper at the wrong time! We got stuck in really bad traffic to leave Dublin and even with me in the back seat playing with the baby the whole time, the little animal cried a lot and only stopped when we decided to make a strategic stop at the wonderful store Avoca in Rathcoole.

We stopped there (yellow dot on the map) to walk around, have lunch, change diapers, breastfeed, buy some snacks and recharge our batteries and then we continued our journey this time with Patrickinho calm. Since the traffic improved a lot after this point, he slept well with the movement of the car and we were able to drive to our hotel in Waterford, the Tower Hotel & Leisure Center. We arrived very tired and decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant, which was very tasty, and then the three of us fell asleep in bed! (Yep, he slept with us in the middle of it – I told you more about taking care of the baby in this post).

Day 2 – 06/01/18 (Friday)

We had a very complete breakfast, went to relax in the hotel's indoor pool and then did checkout of the room. As the hotel is next to the city's main attraction, House of Waterford Crystal, We went on foot and it was very peaceful. In fact, a 10 for this hotel, which was the little one's first! We started our trips on the right foot.

Already inside the House of Waterford Crystal, we did the tour guided and I highly recommend it! Fortunately, our little one behaved super well, observing everything and everyone – how proud! – and we were impressed with the production process and final pieces on display. tour It lasted less than 1 hour and then I felt like buying everything in the store – be careful!!!

We then walked through the historic city center, which, like any self-respecting Irish city, has colorful little houses, stone churches, statues and some pubs. Look how cute:

We left the city in the middle of the afternoon, stopping for lunch strategically at The 2 Mile Inn, and because of the time, we decided to go straight to the next hotel instead of stopping at Kinsale (a cute Irish town that was in our initial planning).

We drove to the Westlodge Hotel & Leisure Centre, which is impressive on the outside but nothing special on the inside, and we ended up having dinner there before passing out on the bed. Nice room, look:

Day 3 – 02/06/18 (Saturday)

After a not very good breakfast and doing the checkout from the hotel, we drove to the Mizen Head, an attraction recommended by a friend that I really liked! I think it's worth it if you're thinking about taking a trip through southwest Ireland, as the scenery is really beautiful and it's much emptier than the other places. Cliffs of Moher, for example. Oh, the trail is very easy even for those with a baby stroller!

The sunny place is simply amazing, but it's a shame that when we got there it was cloudy. Just take a look at Google for you to fall in love with! <3

We left there, had lunch at pub of Abbey Hotel (good food even!) and then we drove to our Bed and Breakfast, the Kingdom View. The room with two double beds was Super cozy and perfect for us with the baby!

Day 4 – 06/03/18 (Sunday)

We had a hearty breakfast at the B&B and following the owners' tips, we went to see the Ring of Kerry counterclockwise, passing for sure for the Valentia Island. We drove through the cute little towns of Ring, but we saw no need to stop to get to know them better.

Once on Valentia Island, we followed the signs to the viewpoint Geokaun View and we stopped to do the trails they indicated, which are super baby friendly. Just look at the view:

We continued our journey, completing the Ring of Kerry and stopped for lunch at a charming place in Sneem called Sacred Heart Restaurant, with very tasty food.

Fed, we continued the journey and another place that caught our attention, despite having arrived there late in the evening, was the Gap of Dunloe. What a beautiful place! It's a shame that Patrick was super tired and crying when we passed by, so I'll have to owe you a beautiful photo of it. Here's this one from inside the car:

We got back to the B&B around 10pm – yes, we missed the time and Patrick suffered because of it, poor thing – and the night was horrible. He woke up several times during the night and there was even a time when we thought it would be better to take a drive so he wouldn’t wake up all the guests at the B&B. He managed to fall asleep with the rocking of the car and we managed to calm down too, but we learned our lesson: never stay out late with a baby again.

06/04/18 (Monday) – returning home

We had breakfast, dying of shame for the disastrous morning and apologized to all the guests who were there, who politely said that they hadn't even heard him crying.

We left the B&B around noon, as we took the opportunity to sleep a little longer, and drove to Dublin for almost 5 hours, exhausted, which was a pretty bad experience. We had set aside the whole day on Monday to make some nice stops on the way to Dublin, but since we left late, we only made strategic stops to have a snack and stretch our legs. We definitely didn't end the trip on a high note.

Still, after this lesson we learned in practice, I found it very worthwhile to travel with my little one, because I loved seeing him observing everything, interacting with people and participating in something that is so important to us. I think we could see that the pace is really slower, as all our friends with children had already warned us, but that we can do SOOOOO many things together.

Let's explore the world with this delightful boy in a more responsible way! <3