Video | Sunville B&B, near Ballymaleau
Video | Seaview House Hotel, near Ballylickey
Video | Rivermount House, near Kinsale
Video | Glendine Country House, near Waterford
Video | Clifden House, Dublin
Reporter's Notebook: Ireland
These B&Bs were included in CIE Tour's B&B Go-As-You-Please package. Because of a change in the program, upgrades that allowed travelers to use their vouchers at hotels as such as the Seaview, shown here, are no longer available.Glendine Country House, near Waterford
The brochure promised an October week's vacation in Ireland for two for about $900. For this we would get a clean room with private bath in a wide choice of lodgings for six nights, a hearty cooked breakfast each day, and a rental car.
My internal autoresponder conjured images of a rusting rattletrap and fleabag hotels in dodgy neighborhoods. In a year when the dollar was trading at all-time lows against the euro, this affordable package had to be too good to be true.
Yet here I am, a contented temporary Dubliner, killing a pint of Guinness and stomping my heels with an Irish band at the Temple Bar, then strolling back to my none-too-posh but clean hotel near the city center.
My mood has been the same for the past week as I've toured castles, watched crystal cut at the Waterford factory, pondered the Blarney Stone and rolled through Ireland's glowing green carpet of grass. Satisfied.
HERE'S THE DEAL
The package -- offered by CIE Tours, Ireland's largest tour company -- promised vouchers good at 1,700 bed-and-breakfast lodgings from a list that would be delivered about three weeks before our departure, meaning we could book our rooms slightly in advance or just wing it once we arrived. By paying more, we could confirm our reservations in hotels and upscale lodgings in advance. And we could have chosen a package that included air on a major carrier. (Several other companies offer similar arrangements.)
''A lot of people don't want to go on tours,'' Brian Stack, CIE president, told us. The go-as-you-please packages offer both flexibility and security. ``The big attraction is that you pay up front for air, car and accommodations, so you know what you're paying.''
Because of time limitations, none of CIE's packages made sense for us. So we replicated one, choosing lodgings from the voucher list the company supplied and a rental car identical to the smallest one offered. (Yes, you have to drive stick to get the lowest price.) Our route led to the south, where the climate is temperate, the grass evergreen, the food fresh and often inventive.
Ruins of ancient churches crumbled in the springy earth. Seaside villages flanked by fishing trawlers and sailing boats were ringed with stone walls and secured by lighthouses dating back centuries. Pubs, bookshops, cafés and boutiques brightly painted in yellow, red and cinnamon lined cobbled lanes. Newly developed row housing -- the offspring of the recent economic roar dubbed ''the Celtic tiger'' -- seemed boring and soul-less
In the medieval town of Kilkenny, the stately Kilkenny castle revealed a history of fortress, chateau and manor home of the Butler family and its political intrigues. (The ill-fated Anne Boleyn was related to the Butlers, and it is said that Queen Elizabeth I may have borne a Butler son.)
On the western coast, the once-grand Bantry House offered testiment to a time that is long past and the owning family's struggle to maintain a grand tradition.
Wherever we landed, our lodgings were always clean and secure, with a private bath attached directly to the room and TV in the room. Breakfasts were hot, hearty and tasty, usually including eggs cooked to order, Irish bacon, pastries and fruit.
But unlike the United States, where B&Bs typically are inns, these Irish cousins are private homes that host guests. We passed family photos and bric-a-brac as we carried our own bags upstairs. We overheard the odd family conversation seeping from the kitchen and played catch with a friendly dog in a yard. (Indoors, he was sequestered in the family wing.)
Since we stayed only a single night in each lodging, we didn't get to know any of our hosts. Some seemed businesslike and impersonal; others stocked tables with brochures and provided a computer for free Internet use. All knew the local restaurant scene and suggested options. Each had a phone that could be used with an international calling card.
FAVORITE PLACES
Our favorites offered a little more: a guests' area for lounging, a hairdryer in the private bath and a touch of warmth from the owner. Our least favorite was undergoing construction -- something we hadn't known when we'd booked -- and while noise wasn't a problem, the owners seemed distracted. Our Dublin lodging -- a three-story walk-up, with our room on the top -- was located on a transitional street that was home to both a Best Western and across the street, a sleazy bar. (We kept to the non-bar side of the street and felt fine.)
Each of these lodgings is a member of an Irish B&B association, so we could have found them on our own. And traveling in Ireland's off-season, we discovered, we were able to book both accommodations and rental car independently at about the same cost we would have paid to CIE. But the dollar was wobbly, and we watched it nervously, knowing our budget could tank at any minute without the guarantee of pre-paid arrangements.
Also, we appreciated the convenience of the lodging list, delivered in a booklet along with maps and suggested itineraries. We felt a sense of security as well; all lodgings are monitored by CIE and the Irish lodging associations to which each belongs, so we weren't flying entirely blind. (Complaints about B&Bs are rare, Stack says, and his company takes them seriously.)
We found drawbacks to the lodgings as well. Most were several miles from town centers, which meant we had jump in the car to catch dinner. In the off-season, we realized, we could have landed rooms with more central locations for about the same price. Too, we suspected that if we'd taken the laissez-faire approach of going with the wind and booking each new lodging as we went, we might have found ourselves without a room -- at least on weekends.
But all that seemed a reasonable tradeoff for the value. Of course, we did rack up additional expenses: an extraordinary dinner at the chef-owned Dunbrody House Hotel (about $75 per person with wine), the 14-euro ($21-plus) tour of the Guinness brewing house, the 8-euro (about $12.25) tour of the Waterford factory and about $95 in gasoline. Still, those fees were largely in our control, and when we were feeling wallet-challenged, we grabbed a pub meal for $30 for two.
And now, as I'm jostling my way through the Temple Bar crowd and contemplating my second Guinness, my third-floor walk-up is the last thing on my mind. It's Ireland -- not my room -- that's brought me here, and Ireland that I'll remember.
