Best of Ireland & Scotland - Small Group

Relax at your hotel before joining your Travel Director for a warm and friendly dinner with your small group, an opportunity to get to know your fellow travelers.

Join your Travel Director for an orientation of Dublin, following the River Liffey past the Custom House, a defining building of the city’s late-18th-century commercial expansion. Continue through the city streets to pass St Patrick’s Cathedral, built on a site long linked with Ireland’s patron saint and rebuilt in stone from the 13th century. Then enjoy a visit to Trinity College Library, home to the 9th-century Book of Kells - an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks. The rest of the day is at leisure; perhaps explore the lanes around Temple Bar, visit one of the capital’s museums or galleries or spend longer around Grafton Street and its surrounding squares.

Get a rare look behind the scenes at the Irish National Stud, where you’ll hear how world-class racehorses are bred and trained. Then wander the Japanese Gardens, created by Tassa and Minoru Eida, whose design traces the journey of life through quiet paths and sculpted planting. Afterwards, you’ll travel on to Cork, a lively city shaped by the River Lee. Travel along Grand Parade to see City Hall, the Opera House and the mix of architecture that tells Cork’s story in a single sweep.

Visit Blarney Castle, built in the 15th century by the McCarthy dynasty, with the Blarney Stone set into the battlements high above the ground below. Long tied to the ‘gift of the gab’, it remains one of Ireland’s most enduring legends. Later, continue to Killarney for a short orientation before taking a traditional horse-drawn jaunting car ride, a local form of transport that has been part of life here since the 19th century.