UK & Ireland — June/July 2026

 

At Stonehenge

Link to more photos. (View the photos individually to see the captions.) 

We went on a two-week long trip to England, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. We had been to London and Stratford in 2024, but had not seen the rest. Here's a map view of the itinerary:

and a stickers view:

There was off-and-on rain, but happily, we were often traveling on the bus during much of it. The temperatures in many places were a bit cool, despite a continent-wide heat wave. Between cities, the views were mostly lush green, with occasional dotting of sheep or cattle. Blake's "green and pleasant land" kept running through my head. Click here for a second album of photos of greenery.

This was a tour with additional optional parts that you could buy. We paid for five of the fourteen optional pieces. In the photo captions, (*) indicates that some of our group did more at that place, but not us. We hit many, many sites during the trip. There are more photos than usual, and the photos tell most of the story. The following text is mostly a recital of our stops, with links to explain each item. 

From Stonehenge, we went to Bath, relaxed in Grand Parade park, then admired the Royal Crescent and the Circus. After a night in Cardiff, we stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon, then Liverpool, with some Beatles sites (see the photos). On the way to Dublin, we stopped in two Welsh towns, Conwy and that famously long-named village. This is only souvenir I bought during the trip:

In Dublin, we stumbled on a small Pride festival in the Temple Bar district (see the photos), and toured the Glasnevin Cemetery and the Irish Emigration Museum, before closing the day at the Merry Plowboys gastro pub. The highlight of the next day was Blarney Castle, where Victor kissed the Blarney Stone. (Yes, it's in the photos.)

At Kerry Bog Village, we had Irish coffee and played with Irish wolfhounds and bog ponies. Along the Wild Atlantic Way, we watched Irish sheepdogs working in Wicklow. 

After a stop in Limerick, we went to the Cliffs of Moher. The following day, we entered Northern Ireland, stopping at Derry/Londonderry and the Giant's Causeway. In Belfast, some visited Titanic Belfast. 

A ferry took us to Scotland. On the way to Edinburgh, our first stop was to view highland cows (their horns reminded me of Texas longhorns), followed by a whisky distillery in the Highlands. We had a bus tour of Edinburgh highlights, and we were glad to be on the bus because it was raining.

Upon re-entering England, we glimpsed Alnwick Castle and Gardens, where some of our group practiced flying a broomstick on the very spot where Harry Potter and his class mates had their first flying lesson in the film. After a night in York, we visited Cambridge and then returned to London. We strolled Greenwich Park and viewed the Greenwich Observatory. The next morning, we flew home.