For our honeymoon next summer, we're thinking of Dublin and England.

We will go ~10 days, and I see from dublin to Liverpool is a 4 hour ferry ride, and from liverpool to london is 2.5 hour train ride (across the english countryside), all together only about $200 a couple.

So we'll probably fly into either london or to dublin, then about half way through, take the ferry/train to the other city, then leave from there. 4 or 5 days in each area (maybe spend one full day in liverpool, not a night though)

What interests us is the castle-seeing, pub crawling, and just sightseeing/roaming the countryside (not just stuck in the big city), and of course streetwalking, shopping, nightlife in the cities.

This isn't 100% yet, we're still considering Italy.

Leaning towards dublin/london simply because we'll see so much in one trip/variety.

Anybody want to shed any light on our conundrum?

If you are thinking about picking up a rental car in the Irish Republic and taking it on a ferry to England, think again. Most rental companies will not let you do that. It's also a poor use of time.

10 days would be a good amount of time to spend simply touring Ireland. You could start off with 3 days in Dublin, then spend a week driving, probably mostly on the West Coast. You might consider flying into Dublin and out of Shannon. Galway is also supposed to be an interesting town.

London is pretty darn intense. If you want to do London, I'd rule out doing Ireland. You could do London and some English countryside (the Cotswolds, for example), but if countryside is what you're looking to see, Ireland, or even Scotland, would be better.

we'd probably rent car in ireland, as you said, and drive around outside of the city, but I had no intentions of putting the car on the boat. Why would we even do that?

We'd turn the car in, take a cab to the boat and onto to liverpool, site see there for a few hours, then a train to london, where if needed we'd rent another car..

Is there really enough in ireland to keep us busy and interested for 10 days? Outside of the castles, roaming countryside, shopping and pubbing, i just don't see what else we could do that would last 10 days.

The only reason anyone normally takes a ferry from Ireland to the UK is to take a car. Dublin is the home of one of Europe's biggest discount air carriers, so most everyone flies to and from Dublin.

Unless you have a burning desire to see Liverpool, I really don't see the attraction of the ferry.

If you're looking for nightlife, Dublin has its fair share. London has more than its fair share. If you end up in the countryside, nightlife consists mostly of pubs that have last call at 11 p.m.

I wouldn't have any problem filling up a 10 day itinerary for Ireland, but you may feel differently. If you want more cities, you can add Belfast to Dublin and Galway. My advice would be to check out Rick Steeve's Ireland travel book. It will give you some very specific ideas for an itinerary.

i'll check out that book..

i wasn't interested in liverpool per say, it's strictly a hub to get from dublin to london, without flying or driving. I think a train ride from LP to london would be cool and a great way to really see the natural side of england..

Most British train journeys are not very scenic. I took the train from London to Edinburgh and only the section along the North Sea from Berwick to near Edinburgh (30 minutes out of a 4.5 hour journey) was what I would consider scenic. English rail lines have few at grade crossings, so you oftentimes end up in sunken right of ways so that roads can bridge over the rail line. If you want to get from Dublin to London, flying is by far the most practical way to do it.

Do check out Rick Steeves. If you're not an experienced European traveller, his books can be a real eye opener and are very practical.

After giving your post some more thought, let me make a suggestion: Instead of combining Dublin and London, why not combine Edinburgh and London? Edinburgh probably has more to see the Dublin, and is fairly close to great scenery (Ireland is more bucolic--Scotland, dramatic). Edinburgh has a great castle, and you could either rent a car or take one of the many daytrips offered by various tour companies to see a bit of the Highlands. Then you could take the train or fly to London for the final part of your trip--or vice versa.

Dublin is a nice city, but it's not real close to the most scenic parts of Ireland. Edinburgh is older (stay in the Old Town on or near the Royal Mile if you want to be in the middle of the action) with a spectacular castle and some natural scenery of its own.

+1 for Rick Steves books. Used his Europe Through the Back Door for a several month excursion and saved a TON of money. Also saw everything on my list, and lots of things I didn't even know about.

10 days in Ireland would fill up quick. I'd fly into Shannon and do Dingle Peninsula, Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Sligo, maybe a couple days on a boat on the Shannon river, up to Donegal, Derry, Belfast, then back to Dublin. You could basically tour most of the country.

I'll be in Sligo for 15 days starting next Friday. I can't wait to get to my second home.

[This message has been edited by GCRanger (edited 8/27/2009 2:41p).]

I wouldn't take the Dublin to Liverpool ferry. Take the 8:45 ferry from Dublin to Holyhead. Then take the train from Holyhead to London. You only have to switch trains once. Actually, you get off the train, stand there for 5-10 mins, and then get on the next train that comes, then it is direct to London Euston. From there you hop on the underground to wherever you wanna go.

When you are at the Irish Ferries location in Dublin (port Terminal 2) you can buy your tickets. Ask for a sail/rail ticket. It should be 43 euros a person, this is much cheaper, and sometimes faster than flying. If I remember correctly, you leave at 8:45 and arrive around 2pm or so in London. The ferry is quick and painless, and the train ride is quite scenic.

Just a suggestion.

Skip on the blarney castle, maybe make a quick trip to the cliffs of Moher and then do a quickie around the dingle peninsula (much better and shorter than the ring of kerry).

I would think between the two cities you will have a ton of things to choose from, so pending weather, you should have a great trip.

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10 days in Ireland would fill up quick. I'd fly into Shannon and do Dingle Peninsula, Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Sligo, maybe a couple days on a boat on the Shannon river, up to Donegal, Derry, Belfast, then back to Dublin. You could basically tour most of the country.

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+1

Especially Donegal and the Connemara/Galway. RyanAir flies from Derry to London Stanstead.