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Ireland is compact enough to criss-cross very readily in just one day and be back in your hotel in time for dinner.  For this journey we took a bus, a tram, three minibuses, two trains and two aircraft.  Most of this was done on a single ticket.

Although the trip took just a day we went from modern-day Dublin all the way back to the iron age, and stood on a perilous cliff looking out in the direction of the Americas.  This took us back in time by perhaps as much as twenty-two centuries.

Bus

Our journey started off with a bus from slumbering Temple Bar, exhausted from its jollity of the night before, to Dublin Heuston station.

Train

At the station we were met by a member of Railtours Ireland, who was to escort us all the way through to Galway.  From this point until we returned to the station in the evening we travelled on a single Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) ticket!  We boarded the train at 7:30 and enjoyed the lush greenness of the Irish countryside, punctuated by towns with familiar English names, though the Irish names were to us unfamiliar and exotic-looking.

As we drew closer to Galway the stone walls of the West became more prevalent.

From the station in Galway we were given directions to the minibus stop and said goodbye to our escort.

Minibus

We were driven from Galway to the Connemara airport.  It is worth commenting on that the drive was at a reasonable speed and in compliance with the traffic laws.  That made a refreshing change from our experience in many other parts of the world.

Flight

Aer Arann Islands operates the eight-minute flights from Connemara across Galway Bay to the Aran Islands.  We flew to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran islands.  The flight is a short hop in a nine-seater twin-engined Britten-Norman Islander aircraft.  Each passenger is individually weighed so that the balance of the aircraft can be calculated.  (If you weigh more than anybody else then you are probably going to sit in the single seat at the back!)

There are good views of Inishmore as you come in to land at the small aerodrome.

Second minibus – tour of Inishmore

The villages on Inishmore are clusters of sometimes as few as three to four houses.  One views various ruins of buildings such as the Irish Church, and a building that dates back to Cromwell.  The fields are small and the walls of stone around them are an indication that they were riddled with stones that had to be removed by hard, back-breaking work before anything could be planted.

The undoubted highlight though, is Dun Aengus, built around 200 years BCE by people so ancient that archaeologists have no clue as to who they actually were!

Iron-age fort: Dun Aengus

Dun Aengus has its back to the sea, with a 100 metre cliff on that side, and a series of four concentric fortifications on the land side, to protect it from attack by land.  It is not clear what its purpose was, but whoever built it certainly went to a lot of effort to put it up.  Some have suggested that it had religious purposes, but that seemed to us to be an unnecessary amount of fortification for a shrine.

Curiously enough, some walls that were “restored” in more recent times appear to be falling over already, in contrast to the original walls that seem to be doing fine by themselves despite their age.

Our visit to Dun Aengus was enhanced by the local historian offering her expertise and knowledge to our small, ad-hoc group that had tramped up to the fort together.

There is a fairly long, uphill walk from the small group of crafts shops where the minibus stops, up to Dun Aengus, and the site itself is perched on somewhat of a hill, so you need to be fit to get there.  It is not suitable for folks using wheelchairs.

There was time to lunch at the crafts village, and buy some unique knitwear, handmade on the island.  Though wool was also on sale, it rather disappointingly came from England!

The return to Dublin consisted of everything in reverse: a minibus to the aerodrome, another fun flight, the minibus back to Galway.  A short stop in Galway to buy some traditional jewellery (helped by kind directions from the driver), then the rail journey back to Dublin and a short tram ride back to the hotel.

The green beauty of the land is something truly memorable.

This image and any images not specifically attributed, Copyright DIY Travel Expert.

If you are determined to go to a specific place on a specific date, pick your preferred airline and stay in a predetermined hotel you are likely to pay the most of all.  This is one reason that business travel is so expensive.  If you are prepared to show a little flexibility you can reduce the costs significantly whilst enjoying a higher standard of travel.

Dates

Check whether your proposed dates are high-season, shoulder-season or out of season.  Out of season is cheapest.  But the proviso is that some places can be quite nasty when out of season – their main attractions may even be closed, or the weather could be extreme.  It may be that by moving your date by as little as a week you can realise a nice saving.

Destination

If you want to see the Sistine Chapel in person you have no choice as to destination – it is at the heart of the Vatican, which is embedded in Rome, Italy.  To state the obvious: it is a building and never goes on tour to other places.  And if they are selecting a new pope at the time, you are not going to get in unless you hold the rank of Cardinal in the Catholic hierarchy.

If, however, you decided to see “Italian Renaissance Art” instead then your possibilities broaden considerably – practically any region in Italy will have rich treasures to please you.

Find the nearest transport hub

Some of our best adventures have come from having a variety of modes of transport, even on the same day.  (There are exceptions: One of our team loves flying so much that any journey that can be done by air, however impractical that may be, is going to be done that way.)

For instance, though it is possible to fly to Galway from Dublin, you are going to get a magnificent experience of the Irish countryside if you take the train instead.

Work back from the furthest part of your journey and add the links as you go.  If you are lucky, your chosen destination is a major city that is a transport hub.  But more often than not, you are looking at something prettier and smaller and it may be a problem to find the right hub.

For instance, there a number of wonderful Adriatic cruises that start and end in Dubrovnik, Croatia.  However, getting to Dubrovnik, which is only a minor regional hub, can be expensive.  After doing some further research you will find that it is as much as €200 more per person  than going to Venice.  Then you find out that there are Adriatic cruises that leave from Venice!  (And a number of those cruises stop in Dubrovnik anyway, so you still get to see the city.)

Break the journey at connections

DIY Travel Expert recommends that you break your journey at connection points and make them secondary destinations.  This is particularly true of long-haul flights with multiple connections.  If you stop over on the way there you reduce the journey to a series of shorter hops.

A number of carriers route their flights via their main hub.  If you are flying between Europe, Asia and Africa on Emirates, for instance, you are going to spend some time on the ground in Dubai.  Etihad go via Abu Dhabi.  Qatar will put you in Doha.  You may visit Istanbul courtesy of Turkish.  Who cares if those places are not destinations that you would have picked for your holiday?  You have your main destination picked out already.

A stopover at one of these places incurs zero additional transport cost!  It is almost a free destination.  (Okay, you may have to pay for visas, and there will be excursion costs, but the transport is free.)  In fact, it gets better than that… it is often cheaper to travel via the carrier’s primary hub (even though the distance is further) than it would be to fly direct city-to-city.

You probably do not want to stop over on both the forward leg and the return, so you get to pick.  Sometimes, if the place you are going through is particularly nice, you might want to plan to spend a few days in one direction and just one day, without a sleepover in the opposite direction.

If you follow this advice, instead of minimising your connection time, you may find yourself expanding it so that there is time for an excursion at the carrier’s hub city instead.  It is exactly why they brought you there in the first place, but you can turn it to your advantage.