Help me plan our vacation (Iceland, England, & Ireland)

[soupytwist]

I live in the England - and I hate London with a passion, I was there again this weekend and I just find it such a depressing, crowded, dirty place.  But as a tourist you'll probably want to go there, ugh!   

I understand, I'm not all that far from NYC and hate it with a passion, but I understand why it is a hot bed of tourism. Thanks for the other advice, I'll look into that as we finalize our time there.

I've never been to America, but yeah if one day I did I'd want to do New York 

[Stadler]

Speaking of NYC, I'm about 2 hours from there (but grew up about an hour and 15 by train) and oddly, it's too far to just go in for a couple hours, but not far enough that it's a "vacation" so I don't go in all that much except for shows.  I'm going to see Michael Schenker next week, and I have the day, so I thought I'd go see some landmarks in and around Irving PLaza/McSorley's.    The old Fillmore is there, CBGBs, the Chelsea Hotel (Leonard Cohen lived there for a while, Nancy Spungeon - Sid Vicious' girlfriend - died there), the loft that Kiss used to use to rehearse, the Record Plant studio, Electric Lady Studios, etc.   There's a ton of Bob Dylan shit in the Village, the cover site for Physical Graffit, etc.  So I plotted a bunch of things out on Google maps...


...and it turns out I've seen most of them.  Well, not the actual landmark, but for example, I had lunch with my family in Madison Square Park... and the Kiss loft was right there.  I pissed in a McDonald's right next door.   The Fillmore is a bank; I literally took cash out of it's ATM last time I went to McSorley's.    CBGBs is a John  Varvatos outlet store. The  city is like a living skin that cuts, scabs and scars over and what was there is lost to time.   It's kind of sad, really.   

[TAC]

Agreed on the Scotland thing.

Also, if you go to Ireland, go to GALWAY.   And if you can't, still, go to GALWAY.  Finally, if nothing else, go to GALWAY.   

I'm planning a trip for next year to take my two daughters to Ireland, and we'll do the obligatory Dublin, I'll take them down south, past Limerick (I had a great time in the shadows of the Murphy's Brewery in Cork) but the main time will be on the west coast, in Galway.  It's some of the most beautiful geography on the planet, in my estimation. 

Galway.

We had such a great time driving all over Ireland last summer. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

I live in the England - and I hate London with a passion, I was there again this weekend and I just find it such a depressing, crowded, dirty place.  But as a tourist you'll probably want to go there, ugh!   

We spent a few days in London in the summer of 2014. Holy shit was it crowded!

[Nick]

Thanks for the help everyone, for those interested we have our gameplan down for Iceland and Ireland.

We land in Iceland at 5:55am one day and leave at 7:40am the next, essentially giving us 24 hours outside of the airport. We're just renting a car and going around at our pace, catching naps in the car when we want. We will be hitting Pingvellir, Geysir Geothermanl, Gullfoss Waterfall, Faxi Waterfall, Kerid Crater, and a hike to the Hvergerdj hot springs at the end of the day. The blue lagoon would have been nice, but it would be pricey considering that we don't want to spend a lot of time on something like that, and we'll get the hot springs in Hvergerdj, which also allows for a nice evening hike.

Then comes England which plans still need to be solidified for, but for Ireland we land, rent a car, and head through the Wicklow Mountains to get to Glendalough to eat at the Wicklow Heather and to then do an evening hike nearby. Next takes us through the south as we tour the House of Waterfield Crystal factory and the Blarney Castle. Blarney closes at 6pm, so we'll scoot over to Killarney and explore the national park a bit before heading in for the evening. Next day we're planning about 7 hours for the Ring of Kerry and then onto the Cliffs of Moher. Then likely a good bit of drive back towards Dublin. Last day will have us in Dublin, with stops/tours possibly including the Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin Writer's Museum, Vanous Bookshops, and Trinity College.