Britain and Ireland Delight

Close to the open country of the Yorkshire dales, this industrial town is the wool capital of England.

Located on Bristol Channel, Cardiff is the capital and largest city in Wales.

Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, Beckett– no, it’s not an English test, it’s your vacation, and if literature is of interest to you, there’s no better place to be: No other city has produced so many Nobel Prize Winners (including 1995’s recipient, the poet Seamus Heany).

Ireland’s capital is a thriving, modern city, yet it’s also strikingly elegant, with many beautifully restored Georgian buildings. And with friendly natives and cheery pubs–well, what more could a visitor want?

“Glasgow town never brought me down,” Paul McCartney sang in 1973, and Greenock, gateway to the dynamic city of Glasgow, Scotland, is sure to please you too as a jumping off point for some terrific exploration of the land of the Scotch. If you like castles and lochs (personally, we prefer bagels and lochs), you’ll love this fairy-tale kingdom.

More ancient and considerably larger than Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh, Glasgow is a multilayered and rich historical experience, easily accessible to visitors. Statue-filled George’s Square, red-brick People’s Palace, and other main buildings like the central railway station north of the river Clyde, are the obvious places to start. The ancient mass of Glasgow Cathedral sits at the city’s heart; around it, the wide streets of Buchanan Street, Argyle Street, and Sauchiehall Street have all been pedestrianized and must be savored on foot.

Known as the “West End,” the westernmost half of the city boasts the refined, handsome proportions and prosperous townhouses of the island’s finest Victorian city, along with the old and new buildings of Glasgow University. Public parks and gardens help to dignify the southern outskirts. Finally, you’ll find their tourist information office about the most helpful on the island!

Restless, enduring and wonderful, London is Europe’s largest city. And surely, if you have the choice to visit only two or three cities of the world in your lifetime, by all means make one of them London.

The Romans started it all. The city they developed was “the square mile,” – and Londoners still hunt for Roman relics in the Thames. History is everywhere you look in London, yet today the city is as modern and metropolitan as any city on earth.

By day, London is buzzing with the frenetic pace of commerce not even Dickens could have imagined. By night, the excitement and glitter of theatres, cinemas, pubs and restaurants beckons throngs of travellers from around the world. But there is another London, a peaceful London of cool museums, quiet tea rooms, immaculate gardens and hushed churches.

There is Royal London – ancient pageantry in a modern kingdom – with its palaces, pomp and precise manoeuvres at the Changing of the Guard. And there’s outrageous London, the urban gathering ground for Cockney pitchmen, “fringe” theatre and the city’s youth, with their own distinctive style.

There is also Greenwich, easily accessed from central London by public transport, or take a more scenic route and arrive by riverboat. Notable for both its maritime history and royal heritage, it is perhaps best known for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time, based at the Royal Observatory.

London, this extraordinary city of contrasts, holds a stunning abundance of hidden-round-the-corner surprises. You owe it to yourself to explore them all. Here, then, is the London you’ll come to know and remember.

Waterford is 85 miles south of Dublin, on the southernmost tip of Ireland. Arriving at Waterford is spectacular. It is a big event for this small town and the people warmly welcome you. Tour its famous crystal factory and watch how it’s done. Or, enjoy a drive across Ireland’s scenic countryside.