Tour guides Jeanie Carmichael and Lolly Spence join Rick for a virtual visit to the quaint and windswept British Isles. Starting in bustling London, we wind our way north through Georgian Bath, flower-bedecked Cotswolds villages, castle-studded Wales, royal Edinburgh, and underrated Glasgow before emerging among the mysterious lochs and mossy mountains of the Scottish Highlands. We then hop over to Ireland to enjoy music-filled pubs and historical sites in Dublin, Dingle, Belfast, and points between. See the full schedule for the Festival of Europe: https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/festival-of-europe
Recorded 1/24/24. *Promotions may no longer be valid.* #festivalofeurope #ricksteves
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Oh hello everyone and welcome to the third night of the Rick Steves tours Festival of Europe my name is Gabe gunning and I have the pleasure of serving as your moderator this evening as we hop across the pond to enjoy the scenic and historic British Isles with
Rick and a couple very special guests and now without further Ado I would like to turn things over to our host for this evening Rick Steves Rick over to you Gabe thank you and thank you all for joining us on another night where we’re celebrating Europe and specifically we’re celebrating our Rick
Steve’s bus tour program and today the focus is on Britain and Ireland and we got a lot of ground to cover we’ll be together for about 75 minutes the first half is going to be England and Scotland and the last half is going to be Ireland and as Gabe mentioned we have two
Wonderful guys that are waking up in the middle of their night to join us live from England and from Ireland so we’re F we’re celebrating travel right now and I’m going to jump right into the slideshow so we can get in there and be inspired to Adventure into the British
Isles or Ireland and whether you’re going on your own or whether you’re going to take a tour we’ve got a lot of important information to share with you Gabe mentioned we’re halfway through our Festival it is Britain and Ireland tonight as you can see here tomorrow is Spain and Portugal then France then
Germany then Central Europe and next Monday we’re all coming over to my place for a virtual party we’re coming over virtually and we’re going to have a lot of fun and that is for sure we hope you can make that now um when we think about all of these destinations today we’re
Covering a lot of Tours there you can see them uh in this region we’ve got a onewe tour of London we’ve got the best of England in two weeks we got the best of South England which complements the rest of England uh we got two tours of
Scotland one is for people who have 13 days for their vacation and the other is for the quicker look 8 days and we’ve got two versions of our Ireland tour one is two weeks and one is one week we have 150 amazing guides at Rick Steves Europe
I am so proud and thankful for these people that are our teammates they are our colleagues they are our travel buddies and together we take 30,000 Americans around Europe every year on about 1,200 different tours and uh more about half of our Travelers are returned customers and they have high
Expectations and these guides know how to meet and exceed those travel expectations this is our spaghetti map and we’re going to be focusing right in there on the North West corner of all of that travel fund England Scotland and Ireland the England itinerary if you have two weeks starts in bath it’s a
Great place to start you fly into Heath and you go directly out to the small sleepy town of bth compared to London meet your guide there meet your bus there and then you head north to The kutwal Villages up into the northern part of Wales with its famous castles up
Into the Lakes District of Cumbria where we make Kess our hometown hik on Hadrian’s Wall a reminder that the Romans were there 2,000 years ago we go to York and we finish off with a grand finale in London if you want to complement that with South England this
Is what we’ll look at after that and this is 13 days in the South starting in London heading over to Berry all along the south coast to Land’s End in Cornwall and finishing in beautiful bath uh so right now we’re going to remind you that we have the onewe tour of
London and then we’ll get into the countryside and I also want to stress if you’re dreaming of traveling independently that’s great the guides are so you can get the information and do the tour without us and of course these guides come with the tour so you have that information as you’re tooling
Around whatever you decide to travel with us you have the guide guide book you have the guide you have the bus and the hotels and all of the sightseeing lined up so you can get the most out of it right now I would like to welcome our guest Our Guest guide
Jeie carmichel and jeie thank you so much for joining us how are you doing oh okay even though it’s two in the morning thank you for inviting me and thank you for joining in everybody thank you for joining us and if you wake up at 2 in the morning you probably want something
To drink and I bet you’re what are you drinking Genie oh a nice cup of tea of course a nice cup of tea that’s beautiful I’m not at 2 am yet so I’m gonna drink a stout now this is Guinness this is an Irish beer right but you find
It a lot in England but I’m just I’m just thinking of it as a stout because England loves its beers and that’s a traditional ale isn’t it yes yes it’s full of vitamin B it’s it’s very good for you reick it’s good for the nerves
They call it a a meal in a bottle don’t they used to be prescribed for pregnant ladies you know is that right yeah you never rush a stout right it takes a while for the head to go down and pour it up and so on but this is a very it’s
Kind of a sweet and Rich and roasty flavor it’s got a lot of times barley lovely multi flavor and you don’t you don’t drink the head that’s for sure you wait until it settles a little bit so I’ll be thinking of England while I have my Stout and we’re going to be
Traveling around how long have you worked as a guide um for Rick Steve’s Europe jeie uh for nine years now nine years and were you a guide before that before you joined us oh my Lord yes I’ve been guiding for 42 years 42 years obviously started as a child that’s
Right I was gonna say that’s and um I’m I’m just so thankful that we have experienced guides like you that appreciate our style of travel and that join us with our tours and where are you right now where do you live I’m in London in the north of London okay great
Well we’re going to head out here and I’ll go back to our photographs and uh when we think about your hometown London I’m just always impressed by the everchanging skyline and you have uh it’s just quite a dyamic urban situation but when you look past all the Modern
Skyscrapers you find remnants of the past and you see the tower bridge leading up to the Tower of London you have so much pageantry and and and so much rich ritual we can go to Buckingham Palace and see The Changing of the Guard and Genie it’s interesting to me in
England that the royal family is such a a big part of any visitor’s um experience what does the royal family mean to to an English person oh well obviously the loss of her majesty the queen was a was a great blow so I think people started to perhaps
Rethink a little bit did you did you read that the the queen of Denmark recently stepped now so people are starting to to rethink things a little bit I think um but King Charles his rating is rising all the time he’s got quite an act to follow
Doesn’t he following Queen Abol yes the lake Queen is a definitely a hard act of follow I I think there’s a rationale for a royal family but it is U harder and harder for a lot of people to see that in the modern age but it’s a long and
Rich tradition and when we do travel to England we’re very likely to see a lot of that pageantry brightening up our sightseeing that’s for sure well here we have of course Big Ben in the halls of Parliament and and that’s the answer to the royalty there’s where the democracy
Is in that uh hallowed building across the street Westminster Abbey and uh these are amazing places this place goes back to the the 1200s and when you step in there we see beautiful beautiful architecture but more important than that we see so much history when we step
Into Westminster Abbey we see the tombs of the of the people who made Britain Great don’t we absolutely 3,600 people buried in the abuna everybody from Charles Dickens to Charles Darwin it’s it’s amazing it it really is like a pilgrimage to English History uh and uh walking in the square in front of
Westminster Abbey you find monuments to your great leaders like Church Hill one of the highlights for me of our London tour is going into the cabinet War rooms and remembering Britain uh during the darkest days of the Battle of Britain in World War II when Churchill was down
There with his uh his inner circle uh and London was enduring the blitz uh there is so many dimensions of London that we cover in our tours one thing I love about our London tour genius we have a whole week there and I understand it comes with the Oyster card where you
Can get used to the public transportation system the tube really empowers a traveler doesn’t it oh it’s fantastic um I mean it runs from 5:30 in the morning till gone midnight you can get everywhere all around London so quickly it’s brilliant system and it’s easy too it’s easy to travel you can be
Upstairs in the in the daylight complaining about the traffic or you can just go Zip Zip Zip underground and that’s why they call it the under underground and I just think that’s good style and I’m so glad that we rely on public transit in our travels when you
Cross the temps River you get to the South Bank and that’s been fixed up to be very pedestrian friendly I love the the uh the beautiful walk all along the South Bank we get to one place which is the famous Millennium Bridge Lots building lots of building in London for
The Millennium uh 24 years ago and you walk over that Millennium bridge and straight ahead you see a building near and dear to the people of London what are we looking at here oh that’s St Paul’s Cathedral the great Dome the iconic Dome of St Paul’s which is not
Only beautiful it’s such a symbol for us of World War II and the resistance of people during World War II a heroic defense of London and then this goes all the way back to I believe it was uh 1711 that Christopher Ren in his very last
Years got to see his son put that Golden Cross on top of that Dome absolutely he was 72 amazing he was 72 years old and he dedicated decades to building this beautiful beautiful edifice look at that inside uh lots of History we’ll go to the Tower of London and this goes back
Even further this is Norman and we know Norman is the style of architecture brought over from the continent with the Norman Conquest uh what is the date that every school child England learns oh 1066 luck it’s easy to remember thank goodness 1066 and when you go to the
Tower of London you see that beautiful castle and you get a very entertaining Tour by the beef feeders and a chance to learn some of the bloody history as so many people were made a foot shorter at the top and a Capper for the experience
For me is to see the crown jewels this is one of those God toy sites in Britain something else that’s really important for me when I’m traveling in Britain is the edible Traditions uh what are we looking at here and what will the tourist experience oh that that’s that’s
Scones now you have these traditionally in an afternoon tea you split it in two I think you call them popovers do you not I I don’t know scones I like to say scones you call them Scots okay right there’s two ways of thinking of this either you put the cream first and then
Jam on top or Jam first and then cream on well what’s the correct Cornwell or Devon I’m a jam first cream later girl because it’s just easier H I’m a slice the the scone into little narrow slices and make many tiny Wafers with the
Butter and the and the jam on it I just love to ex to you know how to live and then okay so there’s lots to do in London and it’s going to be worth the focus and then our best of England tour starts in bath and I just love bath you
Know 2,000 years ago um big shots from the Roman city of londinium went to a place called aquaus to take a bath in the Mineral Springs and uh this was a spa Town even back in ancient Roman times eventually instead of saying I’m going to take a bath at aquaus I guess
They just decided to call it bath and we can actually see the Roman baths it’s a easy to forget that the history here goes back to ancient Roman times and there’s remarkable um artifacts from that period and including this beautiful statue of manura right there in the city
Of bath and what’s also very Charming about bath is the Georgian architecture we just learned what Norman architecture is all about well the Georgian architecture is that’s the English word for neoclassical and I remember it because when we Americans were fighting for our independence we were fighting
Against King George and this was the prevailing art style during that period named after the king georan and you see this architecture and these beautiful planned communities or or Rouses and that is something we learn about uh with our guide or with local guides when we’re traveling in bath about a less
Than an hour south of bath is Wells and there are so many beautiful churches to see and Wells has quite a unique Arch what’s the story Genie about this arch in the Cathedral of Wells well there was a an earthquake which caused the the tower to start to to tilt so this genius
Architect called William Joy decided to make this amazing scissor Arch to stabilize it but I mean not is it amazing engineering isn’t it beautiful it’s beautiful talk about making lemonade out of lemons huh he took a problem with their foundations and a b
In a in a a t in a in a wonky church and he fortified it with this gorgeous Arch and you step inside today and you think man that’s a beautiful you don’t realize it’s a fix and uh nearby is a church that was beyond repair and that’s a
Reminder of the dissolution of the monasteries when Henry VII was in a power struggle with the church and uh that was uh that was quite a time as as Henry VII uh in the middle of the 1500s decided to what level all the abies yeah well they were very wealthy
You see so he literally stole the lead from the roofs took all the land took all the wealth can you imagine in the Middle Ages the RO is so rich people willed their land to the church thinking that would get them up to heaven better and uh the church consequently became
The biggest land owner and that kind of bugged the king and here we go to Glasco and we learn about that um and then York is a beautiful city I love York for many reasons of course it’s got a great Minster a great church but it’s also got
Beautiful museums it’s got museums that take you back in time the the York Castle Museum let you step into shops that are actually outfitted and in stocks just like they were a 100 years ago and the York uh the the National Railway Museum in York is is just the
Best of its kind anywhere on our tour jeie we uh can start the day uh in a good traditional f fashion with a oldfashioned English fry a lot of people call it a heart attack on a plate ah but I find my American friends are amazed that we bake beans for
Breakfast but it means you’re full of beans to start the day you know I mean it makes sense I love beans for breakfast when I’m in England and mushrooms and beautiful tomatoes and of course you don’t want that for 20 meals in a row so 20 Mornings in a row so
You’ve got always a healthy option don’t you you do yeah we do haboc those as well but 200 years ago this is what a Shepherd would eat in the morning so he didn’t have to come home till dinner time sets you up for the day and when you are out in the fields
You always have a pub nearby it seems like we can drop into the pub and be part of the community that’s a big part of our travels and these days they have gastr pubs which I just love a gastro pub makes a big deal about the quality
Cuisine it’s no longer fish and chips and mushy peas in these fancy gastro pubs you can eat quite well we go to The cwol Villages and so many times the place place is very nice to see today because it was wealthy in the old days because of some kind of economy and
There it was the wool of the sheep and with that they could build these beautiful houses and then the wool industry collapsed and they be became so poor they didn’t even bother to tear them down and build up bigger stuff and then rediscovered in the last century
And today Charming little time warps and uh I just love almost nothing more in England than to walk from town to town and enjoy these these cozy little Villages for me Genie as a travel writer it’s a it’s a it’s a temptation to overuse the word quaint I save my use of
The word quaint for the cuts walls right what do you like about what do you do in the what do you enjoy sharing as a guide in the cuts walls oh that the stone is so beautiful everything is made with the local Limestone which is sort of Honey colored many
Places oh it’s it’s it’s stepping back in time it really is but as you say quaint can can feel something slightly false but these are living Villages you know this is real very important and in the countryside not only do we have beautiful living Villages but we got
Lots of history and prehistory Stone circles averbury Stonehenge twice as old as the pyramids in some cases you’ve got a chance here to see a Celestial calendar these Stones moved here from miles and miles away and erected in a way that you can tell the time to plant and the time to harvest
And the time to party according to where the sun sets relative to those stones and to get that information from your guide what a beautiful experience and one of my favorite things about the countryside Genie is finding these Stone circles that are not the famous ones that are just quietly uh going through
Another Century in the middle of uh in the middle of pristine nature do you recognize well we do have 900 of them um this this is this is Castle rig which is on top of a hill in the Lake District it’s so so beautifully set look at the mountains all around it it’s
Like I love it all Al alone at Sunset what a what a delight on our tours I’m so glad that we mix history with exercise and we get a chance to actually Marvel at Hadrian’s Wall which you know 2,000 years ago the Romans spread as far essentially as the border of Scotland
And then I can just see what they did they got oh man this is pretty bleak up here let’s call it an Empire we’ll just build a wall from coast to coast and keep those Scottish people out and today 2,000 years later that bits of that wall
Survive and it’s quite popular to to hike and visit the castles and so on along that wall and uh also up in the north of England we have the Lake District uh the cumbrian Lake District and this is the place is where English people historically have gone to commune
With nature you’ve got these traditional uh boats on the Lakes uh you’ve got the wonderful sheep culture the little wonderful hikes and uh this is the home of the poet woodsworth and and some of the the great poets from the Romantic age uh Genie what what do you enjoy
Sharing about the Lake District when you have a group up there oh there’s so much I mean that the scenery is just breathtaking it’s very different this is the amazing thing about Britain Everything Changes in such a short distance yeah so it’s so interesting I mean the Vikings settled in the Lake
District so many of the place names are Viking and our home I like to not stay in the touristy windir area but we like to go farther north and make Kess our home town and Kess this is the main Square in kesk and it just feels a
Little a little rough and tumble it’s a hiker’s headquarters and a beautiful springboard for a nice day out of uh you know when we think about uh Britain we’ve got England and it’s surrounded by the Celtic Crescent uh Celtic Nations the Irish the Welsh the Scots and in
France Britany um this of course is the symbol of Wales and we go into the north of Wales and the main things to look at there are remnants of English colonialism um I think these are the castles of king Edward that were built in the Middle Ages to assert English
Control over the angry indigenous Welsh people and we can see a castle like this at Conway and then we can actually sleep in the Garrison town that was within those fortified walls it’s it’s wonderful to take Americans who who think 100 years old is a long time for a
Building and to come to a place like this isn’t it yes well we do have 600 castles in Wales we have more so it shows how difficult it was to keep us down you see I I’m Welsh oh you’re Welsh I I was I was on eggshells because
I didn’t know if you were one of those English Colonial English as much as you like I I I just think it’s so interesting to think how feisty the Welsh were because they were totally outgunned but England came in there and built these um what do they call the
Circles the Ring of iron or something something like that all of these amazing state-of-the-art castles and and still the Welsh to this day are um speak their their own language and they have a very proud culture not to mention beautiful beautiful terrain to explore wonderful walks and wonderful Gardens tell us
About this Garden here genie that’s bord and Gardens which is any time of year you go is wonderful but if you go in May this wonderful labna March I mean it is like rounding in Gold it is the most beautiful you know I’m not even that
Into formal Gardens but when I’m in in Britain whether it’s uh or or Ireland um there are so many beautiful jawdroppingly beautiful gardens to visit and really well worth anybody’s time if they’re tooling around and that would be a good stop on our tour uh if you would
Like to um complement that tour of the best of England we really like the south of England and um here we is how we would cover that in 13 days uh you can see the numbers are how many nights you’d stop in each stop there and it starts in canterberry and the White
Cliffs of Dover and then it goes all along the south coast to Cornwall and lanen and finishes in bath when we look at this a lot of people think the White Cliffs of Dover but they don’t know that all of South England is sitting on Chalk
Like that and these are the White Cliffs of anywhere in Southern England and if you look at how thin the top soil is and then where the chalk hits you can understand um the frustrations or the challeng es of farming there and the fun if you are a prehistoric um artistic
Person of cutting out the top soil and revealing the white and uh creating some kind of a design that people can see from a distance but this is South Downs this is beachy head and this is directly uh in the south of England and it is a beautiful place to explore and that’s
Why I’m glad we spend a night there and then we go to Portsmouth now if you’re a British person you know um you know britania rued the waves right uh what is the historic and Maritime significance of the city of Portsmouth on the south coast of England oh we have such
Historic ships there that’s Lord Nelson’s Victory where we showed the French what for of course at the Battle of dufala but you also see the Mary Rose the great Tudor ship oh I mean it is it is our greatest Port I learned so much
When I got to go to Portsmith uh and and to see HMS Victory uh and to think of the hero heroism of of those um Sailors when they were fighting that epic war with France you know dartmore is one of many Moors in England I love a Moore they’re they’re sparsely populated
They’re mystical they just feel medieval to me it was a medieval Common Ground where people could could let their their their cattle run and when you wander through a mo like we do here um you find these um sort of lonely Little Scrappy bits of medieval and ancient history don’t you
Oh and fantastic remants of of the past as well you know Stone circles on dartmore Can You Hear The Hound of the basille’s howling in the background there no but I can hear Roy Nichols right there saying it’s time to get back on the bus
Roy Roy is one of our most uh senior guides I mean I used to do Roy tours with Roy back in our minius days uh I just love wandering through the Moors and finding these kind of places again like your own private Z this is this is
Where I became a travel writer right here I believe this is uh uh near gidley right in in dmore oh wow to be all alone there and you can hike to these things and you find these wild ponies it’s just an amazing Place hey go further south
And you might find yourself in P darkk country I’m a big fan of P dark I should be so lucky yes look at that we were filming here Genie and it was so great this is one of the most windblown beautiful places I’ve ever been Cornwall Wild Country isn’t it but
Beautiful just gorgeous and this is miners country and traditionally the miners would go after work with a not with a lunch pail but with a PTI tell us about what you got there Genie there’s one I made earlier now this is the original takeout food tell us about that
Looks it’s made for the miners because what it is it’s a circle of pastry and you fill it with meat and different vegetables crimp it along the side then you can put it in your pocket you see and take it down the mine to eat and you
Make the crimping like this because they were tin miners so your on your fingers it would be poisonous you see so you hold this bit and then you can eat these bits quite safely nice we have them in Wales as well we call them auggies and
In Wales we would do half meat and vegetables and half something sweet you know I like that that is a very fun that’s a fun uh uh little meal to go you can pick up at a bakery sure absolutely it’s a meal in one Ah that’s great or if
You’re on a rick Steve’s tour uh you can actually go to a bakery as a group and uh make one yourself and that’s a lot of fun I just love these kind of experiences that our guides are finding for our groups to enjoy and this is one
Of our groups making a pasty it rhymes with nasty and it tastes really good all right so uh we’ve got some beautiful scenery in Cornwall this is Mount St Michael St Michael’s Mount and then along the northern coast you come to a place called tinel and I find it very
Evocative because this is the Legendary home of King Arthur and also it’s the place where I found my first back door I just love this door I I put it on the cover cover of my very first book when I was 25 years old that is the door at the cast
And Tin tadel is it Lancelot and GW that could be lanot and G couldn’t it yeah no that that’s just two tourists okay so that’s what we’ve got in England that we just covered with Genie there and we’ve got the southern coast also uh we’re going to head north to Scotland
Now and uh I just I just love Scotland I I took our Scotland tour and I was uh working on the Scot guide book and I thought I would get scripts for two TV shows and you know jeie I got scripts for three TV shows I want to remind
People if there if they wonder what would we do in these countries they can go to our website and uh look at the TV shows on those countries because here we have with three shows an hour and a half covering Scotland and it’s essentially what we do on our 13-day tour here you
Go you start in Glasgow and then you head up north to Obin the gateway to the islands you go to Iona such a Wonder wonderful spiritual kind of place then we go up through the mysterious weeping Glenn Glenco to the town in the North in veress past Loch Ness and head on back
Down to Edinburgh what a beautiful look at Scotland if you got 13 days if you only have eight days uh you can’t do so much but you can do a lot we start in iness and sight see our way down to Edinburgh Edinburgh is an amazing City
It’s got so much history you’ve got the castle on the hilltop and going down from the castle we’ve got What’s called the Royal Mile and the the Middle Ages this was considered the first skyscrapers in Europe and this is the most densely populated Urban Zone I
Understand in Europe and it goes a mile gradually downhill from the castle down to the Palace at the bottom of that Mile and that was the Medieval town and that is packed with fun sightseeing uh uh great shops wonderful restaurants and pubs uh and beautiful architecture there
And on the side roads uh along that walk we’ve got St Gil’s Cathedral and this is a very important Place uh when it came to the Reformation 500 years ago the great reformer this is not the great this is Rick the the the travel writer uh playing like he’s the great reformer
But John Knox was a big deal wasn’t he you can go to John knox’s house across the street from that Cathedral and and put on a robe and grab a a a feather pen he genie in Scotland uh uh tomorrow for us today where you are um
It’s a big day isn’t it what’s happening in absolutely yes it’s Burns night it’s it’s the celebration of his birthday you see January 25th and absolutely Robbie Burns is near and dear to the heart and soul of the Scottish people what is it about Robbie Burns oh he’s so important because he
Went around talking to the old people collecting folktales stories of the past and putting them into his poems and his songs uh so he is the voice of the nation he’s important to me because I am named after his long-suffering wife he was a very naughty boy my sister is
Named after one of his many girlfriends oh your parents had kind of a sense of humor there I think well they’re having a lot of fun in Scotland today uh they drinking to Robbie Burns and uh getting out the haggus and uh he’s important historically because he
Uh celebrated the Romantic image of the Scottish people after they were so long downtrodden by England and uh he actually Charmed the royal family and the royal family became fans of traditional Scotland uh consequently they have their getaway up at Balmoral Castle but when you’re in Scotland
You’ve got lots of bag pipes you’ve got lots of kilts you’ve got lots of of uh traditional outfits and you’ve got a lot of Folk Music Edinburgh is a great Cultural Center because um of the Ed Edinburgh Folk Festival and music festival also Edinburgh has lots going on politically lately this is the
Parliament and in the late 1990s they had a referendum and the and England gave the Scottish people um uh limited autonomy and they were able to build their own Parliament building I believe it was 2004 this amazing Parliament building opened and for the first time in centuries the the Scottish people had
A parliament in Scotland not in London and you can proudly tour that today it’s a beautiful and inspir inspiring place to visit isn’t it Genie oh gosh yes it’s as it’s grown out of the landscape that’s the point of the design of it it’s to make you think of Scotland it
Really is and you wouldn’t know about all the fine meaningful points in the architecture unless you went there and had a guide to take you around and explain to you the importance of it uh you’re a Welsh person uh you’ve got Celtic brothers and sisters in Scotland it must be an interesting relationship
You’ve got with uh with the the uh the English you know well my father’s from Glasgow that’s my Tartan okay yep so I’m a real kelt so you are a kelt I I just think uh it’s so fun to be celebrating the ethnic diversity and the changes as you travel
Within that um beautiful island here’s something that you find all over Europe these days three flags in front of the city hall you got the European flag uh and this might not be flying there right now because of brexit but it could be flying there again when Scotland decides
Hey we uh we were dis we were we were we were confused at the last election because we assumed we were going to stay with the European Union but here you have the European flag you got the Union Jack for Great Britain and you got the Scottish flag
And it reminds us that people have conflicting loyalties all over Europe and it’s not always that easy to sort out is it well as Scots voted to remain don’t forget yeah they they voted to remain with the with the European Union right yeah sure yeah and so had um
It’s a very interesting thing we don’t know how history is going to pan out but I do think brexit opens the door to a reasonable case for the Scottish people to say we want to redo on the vote because we didn’t vote to stay with England outside of the European Union we
Voted to stay with Britain inside the European Union so they’ve had to go with brexit whether they and they didn’t really want it this is that main drag in Glasgow and I’m so glad we go to Glasgow Glasgow is the industrial alternative to Edinburgh and Glasgow is a workingclass
Town Edinburgh is a higher educated economy town where the government is I I think I love the phrase have you ever heard this Genie they say a funeral in Glasgow is more fun than a wedding in Edinburgh my father used to say that Edinburgh is like a lady who wears fur
Coat a fur coat and no underwear well there’s a lot of fun uh rivalry between those two cities and I think it’s a shame not to go to Glasgow and we do go to Glasgow this is one of our guides Colin Mars and he’s a glas
Boy and we have a local guide like cullin to take us around the city and explain the street art and so on a very important Castle halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh Sterling Castle worth checking out for me a highlight was to get to know a bagpiper and he let me
Play his uh or at least finger his bagpipe as he pumped it and we’ll all get a chance to hear a bag pipe and maybe even play one when you travel in Scotland you are struck by the evocative ruined castles the castle so beautiful and what I learned Genie is that each of
These castles or many of these castles are the historic capital of proud Clans right so you have one Castle which would be the the the historic home of the Campbell Clan and people would travel from all over the world who are of Scottish Heritage and they would go to this clan
And that’s where they’d have the historic artifacts and that’s where they’d have the memories of of of the stirring story of their people their Clan tell us a little bit about how what you find and learn about the Clans when you go to one of these castles well a
Clan is a family in essence so many Scottish names are Mac something are they McGregor McDonald it means sonof you see so that’s the important thing and you feel an allegiance primarily to your clan to your family this was if you like a problem in Scotland because they
Could never get together to to fight the English because they were too busy arguing amongst each other they were more loyal to their individual Clans well it’s a great opportunity to learn more about that in the north of Scotland there’s a city called iness and iness is
Just a fun work a day town if there’s a live music going on or any dancing in a pub your guide will know about it and they’ll be sure that you know about it just outside of iness is the battlefield of codin and codin uh in back in 1746 it
Was the last battle on British soil and it was the so it was the battle that really was the end of the clan system in so many ways up in Scotland we have bunny Prince Charley with his romantic crusade to get Scotland some independence from England horribly
Outgunned by the English and in in just a few minutes more than a thousand Scottish soldiers were killed and they just ran for their lives and after that it was a brutal kind of put down of Scottish Spirit you couldn’t wear the The Kilt you couldn’t play the bag pipe
And you couldn’t speak the language it was a tough time for the Scottish people and you learn about that when you go to that Battlefield codin I love dropping in on our tours as I find them when I’m doing my work out and about and I love
The The Joy on the bus and the fun that people are having and uh how much people are appreciating their driver and their guide uh a great thing on our Scottish tour I got I I take my tours nowadays instead of Le them I just love signing
Up for our tours and uh I love the day that they put together a Scottish uh sampler all the traditional Scottish nibbles and drinks right there and we learned a lot uh also we’re very keen on getting a musician to entertain us when we eat and also to understand the
Whiskey um I just love when I’m in I don’t drink whiskey much in the United States but when I’m in Scotland I do what do you got there Genie what are you showing me got some OD bag what is that good stuff that’s from the island of Isa that is uh very very
Nice whiskey so it to me again what is that sure come to my house you can have some all right I’ve got a little bit of whiskey here it is spelled uh w k ey y what does that mean that means it’s Irish how how is yours spelled oh it’s
No e can you show me a y let’s I’m curious about this okay so you’ve got the Scottish one yeah and it’s hey there he goes w k y yeah you have a and uh but it’s uh they’re both good whiskies but as a Scottish person well first of all I’m
Going to put a little whiskey into my we’re going to talk about this when we go to Ireland but I’m just a little bit thirsty we’re talking about whiskey you can have whiskey neat right uh you can have it with water or you can have it with
Ice only a barbarian has it with ice only has but I went few little drops of water that’s what I love I went to Caden heads at the bottom of the royal Mile in Edinburgh wonderful little spot for your um buying whiskey right out of the cask
And he told me if you just drop a little bit of water yeah into your W Into Your Whiskey it opens yeah it opens it up like like rain in a garden it opens up the flowers and the fragrance and that’s what I found makes a big difference laa
Slancha G for Here’s To Your Health po oh that is really good it’s Irish sorry Scott Scotch whiskey or Irish but that’s the guy I buy a a flask at his place every time I’m there and uh I I I don’t let a day go by without having a
Wee nip when I get into the hotel but we’ll visit a whiskey distillery in spaceside where most of the great uh uh distilleries are and you can just drop into a pub anytime you like and enjoy that and I’m a sucker for the Trad music the traditional music and you’ll find it
In Scotland almost with the same Vigor that you find it in Ireland I love when I’m traveling around Scotland to stumble into a Clan Gathering and we don’t schedule our tours around a Clan Gathering but if there is one uh your guide will know about it and we’ll
Probably stop and enjoy a couple of hours there that’s what we did with our Scotland tour and I I just had a wonderful time almost breaking my back with this heavy Stone event I carried it a couple inches but the winner could just pick it up and run around the block with
It beautiful dancing oh so much fun look at the concentration on that little girl oh what a thrill T not go to the big famous one that’s televised but find the small town Clan Festival another highlight for our tours whether they’re in Ireland or Scotland or Wales is to go
To a a farm and enjoy a sheep dog demonstration this Photograph here is amazing to me look at those humiliated four sheep being terrorized by that one dog and uh we get to gather and get to know the dogs get to know the farmer get
To know the tradition and get to have a little fun with the puppies that’s one of the highlights of our tours feed the pup feed feed the the sheep and so on uh we’ll go along um Lo nest and look for for the Loess monster of course uh if
You look carefully sometimes you can not see him but this is the famous ruined Castle there or court and when you look at the map there’s a cut right across Scotland and that was um quite cleverly uh opened up for shipping back in the industral age and today those locks are
Kind of like parks and the’re beautiful little towns that used to be there because of the trade and now they’re just there because people are on vacation wonderful wonderful nature I think it’s so important for our guide to stop the bus and let everybody just get
Out and and feel the wind just walk for a few hundred yards in the middle of nowhere this is one of our Scottish guides Liz liser and we can get a chance to get up in close personal with a hairy coup uh and then from Obin we head out
To the aisles obin’s a great town catch the ferry get out go over mole and then catch another Ferry and get to the enchanting island of Iona and this is one of those places that’s called a thin place the atmosphere is thin it just there’s something spiritual about it
You’re you’re close to heaven or or something when you’re in an island like Iona and you just can imagine why the monks a thousand years ago chose to build an Abbey here and that’s where they started to write the book of Kels and uh when they were terrorized by the
Vikings they retreated back to Ireland and took the book of Kels with them great Seafood so much to enjoy in Ireland even the hagus I love the hagus they’re drink they’re eating it day like it’s going out of style on burd night I think okay hey I want to remind people
We’ve had to go pretty fast I want to be sure I have half of the evening for Ireland um and a year ago we did our Festival just like we’re doing uh this year in one week but last January 12 months ago we spent 20 evenings like
This and all of those evenings are um recorded and archived and you can find them on our website if you go to our website and you go into the tour program you just look up the tour if you look up Scotland you will then have a link where
You can watch a onehour uh event like this on Scotland uh if you want to go to England uh and this is with with Jeanie carmichel and Lisa friend a year ago Genie was with Lisa and spent a whole hour um on England and if you want to
Have a whole hour in Ireland you can have that and it’s filled with important information if you’re curious about any of these destinations literally triple the information is archived from last year’s public uh our last year’s um party uh also as I mentioned we have more than a 100 episodes of TV shows
That give you lots of information on sightseeing in these areas I want to take just a minute to uh review what’s included in the tours uh all of the group sites see we have small groups of 24 to 28 people uh I love to have a
Small group of like 25 people on a 50 seat bus it’s essentially two seats per person and with a small group we can get into places uh cute little pubs restaurants and and hotels that you wouldn’t be able to get into with a standard big big group you get a
Wonderful Rick Steve’s guide like we’re talking with jeie tonight and you also get a lot of local guides along the way uh and we have accommodations that are characteristic and centrally located they’ll never win any awards for being fancy we’re not looking for that we want characteristic friendly traditional beautifully located hotels
It works great for us all the breakfast half the dinners all the tips are included it’s just a great program if you want more information about that you can find that on our website I do want to remind you uh next Monday we’re having a party right here and we’re
Giving away two free tours and anybody that wants to sign up gets their name in the digital bucket tomorrow you’ll get an email from our Monday night travel staff and it will give you links to all of the things we’re talking about and that includes the um link how you put
Your name in to the um possibility to win a free tour and also you’ll get the promo code reminding you that if you use that code you can save $100 if you sign up on a tour between now and February 5th all of that comes to you in about 24
Hours um so you don’t need to worry about how do I get the discount or how do I enter into the free tour contest uh one thing you can do right now if you like is to order one of our keep on traveling t-shirts just to add to our
Travel fund I asked my staff to put these shirts on half price and we just love to have our keep on traveling t-shirts and they’re available in all different sizes if you like you go to our website and you will see that deal hey I would like um right now before we
Go to Ireland to thank jeie carmichel jeie you’re fantastic thank you for getting up uh in the middle of your night to enjoy or I hope enjoy and hang around for a half hour or so can you do that and join in the Q&A certainly will certainly will see you later folks Genie
Thank you so much now I’m gonna um I’m gonna introduce Irish guide in a moment but right now I just want to kind of kick off Ireland and remind you that uh when we go to Ireland uh Americans have the shortest vacation in the rich world
So I wish everybody could take a 14-day tour of Ireland but not everybody has that much time uh and there is a 7-Day version if you like but when you look at this 14-day trip starting in Dublin finishing in Belfast it really does the most amazing two weeks in that wonderful
Emerald aisle uh if you can’t have enough time to do that the most popular parts of Ireland I would say are Dublin the main city and capital and then Dingle on the west coast that’s our favorite example of small town giltech where it’s a national park for the
Traditional culture uh those are the two itineraries that we have and um when we think about Ireland we we really recognize that there are a lot of Americans uh and there’s a lot of interest in Ireland and that’s something that we notice in our tour ERS so many
Of our Travelers have Irish heritage uh and so many of our other Travelers seem to get Irish heritage after they have traveled there hey right now I’d love to introduce to you one of our guides from Ireland and uh Loi Spence is up at about two o’clock in the morning from Ireland
LLY thanks for being with us good morning Rick how are you I’m doing good how are you doing I’m good it’s a quarter to three in the morning here quarter to three well you look bright eyed and bushy what’s your secret um probably something similar to yourselfa slancha
Um I’m on the Irish whiskey as well with the e in it this is a great one now the dvil this is one you’ll have to try the next time you’re here yeah okay I’m I’m drinking my Stout with a little uh uh whiskey here and um this is uh Irish
Whiskey I was drinking it in Scotland so uh was that uh are you okay with that oh that’s that’s the only only the only whiskey to drink it really good it really and it really is good in Irish cut glass isn’t it this Crystal yeah again snap snap this will be Sean’s
Crystal from dingo I bet we got this from the same guy we’re gonna meet him in a few minutes hey um LLY thank you so much for um staying awake or are waking up to join us and let’s go to Ireland right now with our Travelers um we’ve
Got um when we look at this it’s a reminder that there are 30 or 40 million people of Irish heritage around the world and most of them are in the United States and for a lot of them going back to Ireland is like a uh it’s a part of
Of of understanding your your heritage it’s a beautiful thing and I have taken our Ireland tour absolutely had a marvelous time most of these photographs are from when I signed up on the tour I sign up on tours every chance I get with a pseudonym so nobody knows I’m going to
Be on the tour until the opening meeting and then uh everybody’s kind of Wow Wow Rick’s here and we just after a few minutes I’m just part of the gang and I just have so much fun enjoying the people and the guides and the itineraries when I went my guide was
Dean uh do you know Dean Lolly oh very well know him very well he’s a good friend he’s a good guy and I just am so thankful for our gang of Irish guides it’s so beautiful to let Irish are so proud of and understandably so of your
Culture this shot LLY reminds me of the importance of recognizing that the Emerald island is Emerald because it rains a lot and it looks like this group is ready for the weather doesn’t it well we say we’ve got seven types of rain we’ve Sunday rain Monday rain Tuesday
Rain so you definitely need you need to pack the water preps I’ve never heard that before seven types of rain every day of the week and uh also I I like to say um um there’s no um bad weather just uh what what do I
What do I what do I say there’s no um there’s no bad weather just just the wrong clothing or something like that um and uh and then you mentioned that we’re born with waterproof skin right or something yeah that’s it waterproof skin so we can get out there and have a good
Time and the you know one minute it’s raining and the next minute it’s sunny you just have seven different kinds of weather every day and a good guide has the Irish Cream handy when everybody wants a little something to warm up as we go around Island we just find out it
Is such a beautiful it’s a small island with a small population and uh small roads and a lot of just drop dead beautiful experiences Unforgettable experiences you don’t get places in a hurry you don’t want to rush Ireland uh there’s all sorts of fun things to slow
Down the traffic and uh I find Ireland has The Gift of Gab and it’s a real blessing and when I look at this shot I’m thinking of how Gift of Gab translates into wonderful guides uh tell us who we have here in kinale on the south coast of Ireland this is kinale in
County Cork we’ve got Don and Barry um da and Barry have been guiding for Rick Steves for years Don has just retired a number of years ago but Barry’s still doing it so he’s actually written a couple of books recently I love his books and I love my memories of Don I I
Think I’ve worked with Don for 25 years at least and uh uh what a dear soul and I’m so GL he’s doing well and I’m also really thankful that much as I miss Don as he retires from you know doing his work there’s always another generation
And and Barry is the next Dawn and it’s just a wonderful thing to have these friends in these towns that love sharing every night wherever we go there’s very likely to be some live traditional folk music your guide will know where it is and they’re sipping their Guinness just like I’m sipping my
Guinness but the difference is they’re in an Irish Pub and Guinness does not travel that well to the United States but it sure does well in Ireland if you’ve never really enjoyed and appreciated Guinness try it in an Irish pub and Ireland really has had a um a
Renaissance in in Cuisine I think wonderful wonderful Seafood wonderful Fusion food um and we experience that when we eat in the gastro pubs of Ireland and and so on and one thing I love about our tour LLY are the experiences that we that our guides all design into the itinerary tell us what’s
Going on here please well here we are in the grounds of a beautiful five-star hotel Ashford castle and we’re at the school of falconry and here we’re having a go a flying a Harris Hawk and very often people tell me this is a a real wow moment a once in a lifetime
Experience when these beautiful birds of prey sweep down in land and their gloved hand you can see one coming into land here it’s just it’s beautiful and they’re light is a feather I have always heard about falconry and I got to do it here and it was it like you just said it
Was a highlight of that trip Dublin is an amazing amazing City it was the number two City in the British Empire for generations and I say in the British Empire because of course Ireland was a colony of England and Dublin was its capital and it was a base of British
Imperialism uh it’s got a lot of beautiful Georgian buildings it’s got a lot of Heritage this is the famous half Benny bridge and there’s a song on every corner I mean Molly Malone you name it everywhere you go people are singing songs about what they’re looking at go
To the museums and you got wonderful medieval illuminated manuscripts including the amazing Book of Kells and Treasure troves of gold that go back to ancient times in Ireland it’s amazing how much Rich culture there is on what in the when when the rest of Europe was
In the dark ages in the Early Middle Ages this was the aisle of Saints and Scholars when Europe was rutting in the mud Ireland was the place that kept the literate candle alive in Europe uh and got it through those dark what we call the dark ages uh today uh there’s a lot
Of tourism in Dublin this is a sloppy District called um the Temple Bar and it’s a lot of fun at night uh uh when you’re out and about uh when we leave Dublin uh for a lot of Tours the first stop might be the rock of Castel here we
Get a look at what looks just like a a medieval Wonderland but tell us when we look at that LLY you see a fortified wall you see a church you see a tower what are we looking at there’s a Cathedral up there it’s a really important ecclesiastical site in this
Near corner of it you can see a tall tower sticking up almost like a finger and these are very iconic on the Irish landscape they belfre their status symbols they places of security just to the left of that almost truncated where lightning hit it was a fabulous um
Celtic cross because in the days before PowerPoint presentations the clerics would explain you know with illustrations carved in granite or carved in Limestone and these wonderful Celtic crosses oh I just love the Celtic crosses that we find in the countryside and the reminder that a thousand years ago this was a thriving thriving
Monastic Community uh kinel is the the self-described gastronomic capital of Ireland I didn’t like it when they call themselves the gastronomic capital of Island but after I go there and research for my guide book I agree the best restaurants are really in Kinsale there’s Don with one of our groups and
We’re getting a historic walk through the town and uh you got Charles Fort and Charles Fort is uh uh you know it’s it’s it’s a state-of-the-art fort that takes us back to the 1600s well the most U tragic date in Irish history is what 16001 yeah 1601 in the Battle of canil
That’s right you know when the gilic chieftain surrendered ultimately to the British crme this Fortress was built after that this is Charles Fort and then James Fort is across the way this came later in the 17 Century but in its star-shaped there you see the star-shaped Fort it would remind you of
The star-shaped forts of America most recently of course the Pentagon Ah that’s a modern day Starship Fort that’s right and and this was a state-of-the-art fort the star shaped so you can defend yourself against attackers that might find Refuge near the wall but you’re within bow and arrow
Shot of anybody that attack in your building there and to take a tour of that Fort and to understand its its its importance because when the English put down the uh um uh Earls there uh they just ran for ran for their lives and that was the end really of uh organized resistance
Against British colonialism uh we uh drive through some beautiful countryside my favorite part of the West Coast of Ireland is Dingle Peninsula Sligh head it’s about as close as you can get on the mainland of Ireland to the United States it’s where people stand on the
Bluff and they look out and they say ah the next Parish over is Boston and when you look at those Hills there you have memories of the Famine of 1848 the population of Ireland today is about half what it was before the famine uh and this happens to be a giltech
Literally a a Gaelic speaking district and a giltech is a national park for the traditional culture where people actually speak Gaelic first and English 2 and if you look carefully you can see the furrows those are the famine furrows uh plowed 170 years ago when the famine
Hit the potatoes did not uh right and uh they were just left in the ground and the people died and they never planted scents it’s a very powerful experience to go through Ireland with a good guide and have an understanding of the tragedy of the famine the famine
Where the indigenous people who lived on potatoes had nothing to eat and the absentee landlords who owned the land continued to grow crops for export that weren’t potatoes and a lot of food went from Ireland to England uh and it made a lot of money for absentee landlords as
The IND people of Ireland were being starved down a third of Ireland’s population either immigrated or died during the Great Famine you’ll learn more about that when you are with your guide exploring the countryside I love making Dingle our headquarters and when we go to Dingle we really have a chance
To enjoy that music and we can go out to the Dingle Crystal and meet a guy named Chand delay there’s Chand delay I just think it’s amazing Lolly have you ever thought about how chandel he’s our friend that runs the crystal place his name is sha delay his parents named him
That that’s the French word for Chandelier I mean Chandelier and he grew up to be a well-known glass cutter I mean he cut the um cut glass doors in the finest hotels in Old Dingle they’re done by Shand delay and then this glass that I’m holding here was cut in
Chandelier’s little wine uh glass place and the last couple of years it has been sha and his family it’s a family run Workshop who have made the cut crystal glass bowl which is taken out to America and presented to President Biden the last two years with Shamrocks in on St
Patrick’s Day so for a small little family run business in Dingle he’s really making his Mark internationally now and he’s a gentleman he’s just he and his dog Harley Harley’s also a big attraction when we go there he’s got a dog named Harley yes and Harley Davis
And mot bike sitting in the I don’t remember the dog but I remember a big Harley-Davidson bike when I was in his place but okay well here’s desan I didn’t know he was that distinguished SLA SLA there’s a picture of you in the wall in there as
Well I gotta get back Bono oh me and Bono great all right hey well it’s a fun souvenir and um good for Sean and and I I’m just thankful the way our guides have worked so hard to connect us with wonderful local Artisans it’s a big part
Of your travels and we love it we take our groups to these amazing sites and we explain them so when you step inside you go wow the gis oratory 800 years ago or whatever I don’t know exactly how old is this do you know what century the Gus
Oratory would be from this is over a thousand years old now it’s probably the oldest Christian structure in stone still on the island of Ireland it’s beautiful it’s constructed without any mortar but it’s dry dry inside and you step inside I’ve been in there in a
Driving rainstorm and it’s just dry as a bone and that mortar was more than a thou the the stones without mortar more than a thousand years old we come to the Cliffs of Moore this is the far west of Ireland what an amazing hike that is we explored the burin the uh and
Whoow the west coast of Ireland LLY is so evocative to me because I kind of have a heart for The Underdogs when it comes to colonialism Cromwell came over there and you remember what the famous thing he said about Kara or what did they say go to hell or go to Kara he
Says you can go to hell or go to k basically sent the the people west of the Shannon but we have a word an Irish word d and it kind of means like an enchanted magic and it’s a d about the west of Ireland when you’re out in this
Moonscape or out on the Aaron Islands you’re coming around the mountains of konara or Mayo it is magical it takes you to a different place what is that word I haven’t heard that that’s a beautiful thing d d d r a i o c h d that means like a mystical enchantment there
Is a d there there there needs to be a word for that because I’ve experienced not even knowing there was a word for it I mean when we look at this in the bur which is a fascinating area for for flowers and so on you can see um this uh
Megalith structure these Stones two stones with a with a what do you call it um cap and it’s important to remember that was underground it was like a tomb wasn’t it and the the dirt has since eroded away and the bones of that structure from you know A Thousand Years
BC or whatever survived to this day a reminding that very um mysterious civilizations were there long long before there was any history we go off of the Mainland to the Aon Islands it’s a beautiful opportunity to get to the most remote part of Ireland and when we
Land there we’re tempted to take a horse carriage but more practically we team up with a farmer in a mini buus and with a group of 25 people you’d probably have three mini buses three farmers and we get out and explore that Island together on the far end of that Island there’s a
Iron Age Fortress called dangus which is a fascinating structure what do you tell your groups about Dingus LLY oh they’re putting their hands in ancient history here they’re understanding prehistory really they make their way up this hill to the the last Fortress in gway really
You know it it is you’re looking over a cliff you know if you’ve got the courage you can crawl to the cliff Edge and peer down 300 ft into the crashing Atlantic you know if your glasses fall off your head they’re going to come right across
Meet a polar bear land somewhere over in New York probably but it really is magical and to imagine a civilization living here thousands of years ago as breathtaking very defensive they were expecting attack those jaggy stones you see sticking up the Cho to freeze they’ve been placed like that so that
Anyone attacking couldn’t run in a straight path they would be held up by those stones but it’s an amazing place it’s a great spot and you’ll be rewarded you know for the 1 kilometer hike up if the guide maybe has a we dram of something in a rock sack hey that’s nice
And I remember the thrill of of inching out to that cliff and looking down and seeing the backs of the birds as they fly and seeing the surf far below and then I’m I’m just so scared my whole body becomes like a suction cup holding
On to that rock wow uh we got a chance to learn about the traditional KS uh and uh how until relatively recently there were very humble communities living on that far Fringe I believe no trip to Ireland is complete without going to the north as well as the Republic and uh
Belfast is an amazing city of course it had a a long story of the troubles and there was a lot of very dark and difficult times in Belfast but that really feels like a long time ago now uh Belfast is a great industrial uh Shipyard of course the Titanic was built
In Belfast and today the major draw for tourist is to go to see the Titanic Museum and it is really an amazing U site it’s a state-of-the-art museum and one thing I was very impressed by LLY when I was in Belfast was the um music
And dance culture that you can find in a lot of the pubs and the venues it’s becoming much more prevalent we have been enjoying 25 years last year since the signing of a good Friday agreement and the peace dividend is really paying off we’ve got so many students International visitors
Nightlife you know there’s restaurants catering for anything and everything you might want there’s pubs there’s young people everywhere dancing and shopping and there’s theater it’s it’s a city transformed you know when you think of the heartache in the Holy Land right now with Gaza and Israel and you think of those
Sectarian challenges where everybody’s dug in and they they’re killing each other you know Ireland had the troubles and it had its sectarian problems but Ireland has been a model in overcoming this and of course it’s a complicated story but the people of Ireland learned that it’s best for both communities just
To give everybody a little wiggle room and live together and when we go to Ireland we celebrate that of course you’ve got your your your um uh loyalist communities and your unionists where you’ve got your Union Jacks everywhere and there are people that are um fearful
And and angry just like we have have people in our society and which is so divided that have this kind of Burden uh but there’s a peace wall used to be a dividing wall now it’s called the peace wall and it’s filled with John Len and
All you need is love kind of propag uh uh graffiti uh and there are now guided tours of both of the neighborhoods Protestants still live together in one workingclass neighborhood Catholics still live live together in another workingclass neighborhood and uh they are learning that uh violence doesn’t
Work uh uh tell us how we treat that with our groups Loi to learn and have a experience connecting with these uh communities and and work to get a dual narrative to hear from voices from both communities it’s so important to give that balance you know um I was a
Producer in the BBC for 15 years before I was a tour guide and we were always trained that you have to give balance if you give salt you give pepper if you give Protestant you give Catholic um in the past you you might have got a very one-sided narrative but nowadays there
Are much greater lengths being gone to to ensure that delivery is fair and balanced and you hear it from both sides plus the fact that the troubles are moving into the history the young people up to the age of 25 26 now didn’t grow up with this Legacy and they’re much
More rounded so thankfully we do talk about the troubles as a historic event now and while we keep one eye on the Troubles of the past we’re very much more forward-looking I love the thought that it’s becoming more of a history book thing then tragic my uncle just got
Locked up kind of thing um whenever I see a wall I see that an unintended consequences of a wall is to keep the younger generation on both sides of that wall unable to talk to each other and they consequently are saddled with their parents’ baggage and their parents’
Hang-Ups and if the Young Generation can just get together they can break free from that cycle of violence and uh the Irish both um the the Republic of Ireland and the olster community they were so creative and so determined to build peace and they did these initiatives where the younger generation
Would go to a summer camp together and they’d dance together and they’d party together and it really works so today we look at this uh the the hard history of both communities and we learn from from their uh political posters and their wall paintings and so on and their art
But we know that it’s a time of Hope and U it is something we can we can go and learn from but this is what I love in Dairy you’ve got the Peace Bridge and you’ve got a beautiful Monument like this and what does that tell us LLY this sculpture is called Hands
Across The Divide and this stands the end of the Craig Aven brid andary and it represents people two communities reaching towards each other they’re almost there their hands are about to meet now if you were there last year they had their Co masks on sometimes they get Santa Claus suits on or
Football gear they’re dressed up quite often they’ll have a tin of beer in their hands you know but this a picture of this sculpture was actually in the front cover of the Belfast Good Friday agreement in 1998 so it’s very symbolic oh I love it I would love to be on your
Bus and learn more about the whole beautiful story of Ireland in it’s h you know old and new and good and bad and uh happy and sad on the North Coast of Ireland you have a wonderful um region uh the antrum coast it’s called we use
The resort of portus as our Port Rush as our home base we visit the famous giant Causeway and what are we looking at here from a geological point of view LLY oh from a geological point of view we are looking at 40,000 bass salt columns it’s incredible you know we’re going right
Back to a time when molten lava rose up from the center of the earth rose up through cracks in the Limestone cooled very slowly and cracked to form these beautiful columns but geology isn’t as much fun as as myth and Legend and we prefer to tell the story of Finn mul the
Great Irish giant who built a Causeway to get across to Scotland sorry Genie to beat up the Scottish giant Ben and donor over there so it’s a that’s a a better story to tell but it’s a magical place I was there not that long ago and the
Northern lights were in the sky and to sit on the Giant’s Causeway on the Atlantic on the very north of the emerald aisle with the sky all purple and green above was a really magical moment whoa what a great experience that must have been also up there in the
North Coast just a half an hour drive away you’ve got dun loose which is a castle that is halfway fallen into the sea and uh so much more to see and also we could talk all day about the uh the little people and and the leprechauns
And all of that um but this is this the the picture that I like it’s a it’s a younger generation that knows peace in Ireland today all right hey well we’ve got Ireland and 14 14 days starting in Dublin heading down to kinale over to the West Coast with Dingle Peninsula uh
And then up to the Aaron islands and the Cliffs of Moore and then all the way up to the entrum coast in the north and finishing in Belfast Belfast is just a quick two-hour train ride uh from Dublin and crossing the border is you hardly know you’ve crossed the border uh it’s a
Beautiful way to look at this beautiful island both the Republic and Northern Ireland if you have less time uh we have a onewe itinerary which just is a beautiful week uh starting in the west at the airport near the airport of Shannon uh we of course we want to do
Dingle correctly there’s plenty of stops along the way include the Rock of Cashel and kill Kenny and we finish in beautiful Dublin we also talked earlier with jeie we talked about uh England in two weeks and South England in 13 days we got Scotland in the long tour and
Scotland in the short Tour all right so that’s what we’ve got going on if you’re interested in traveling in this area and I want to remind you that tomorrow we’re going to Spain and Portugal then it’s France then it’s Germany Austria Switzerland then it’s Central Europe and
Then we have our party right here in my house a virtual party and you are invited next Monday same time same station now this is a shot that I just want you to look at because these are these are our guides and we’ve got 150 guides just like Genie and just like Loi
And each of them is passionate about their countries and it’s fun it’s so much fun uh to have the the privilege and the responsibility of your long awaited long dreamed for trip to Europe and uh we will do our very best to make that time and money very well spent hey
Thank you LLY and Gabe I think it’s a great time right now to get jeie back and uh and answer some questions we have a lot of wonderful questions for the three of you tonight um as well as I should say many tour members that have taken tours with Loi
And Genie and want to send their greetings so Lai and jeie a lot of your former tour members are saying hello um I want to start with a quick a few questions about some kind of travel tips and Rick I want to start with you Susan
Is wondering what is the best time of year to visit um the British Isles I know that you always plan your travel year very carefully um by kind of weather and destination so what would yeah Gabe I’m not good in the Heat and I am very careful to avoid Spain in
The summer if I can you know avoid Greece in the summer if I can and I was very proud this last year I traveled from Morocco to Iceland and from Poland to Spain you know and uh I never found my weather going out of the 7s or maybe
The low 80s and it was a beautiful time because I jiggered it correct when it comes to Britain and Ireland I would say and I’d love to get LLY and Genie’s take on this um I don’t think you’re going to have debilitating Heat like you want to
Avoid in the south of France and I would go for peak season because I like the long days I want more weather and I like there to be energy in the sites when there’s lots of Tourism having said that I also think it’s really important whether you’re going in the peak of
Summer or shoulder season to pack in a way where you are not pushed into your hotel because of bad weather you want to be out there with your parka and your wool hat enjoying it rain or shine wind or not uh and you can travel then in the
Spring and fall also uh but um jeie what do you advise if people have flexibility and they could go any month of the year personally speaking I love the springtime uhuh our country is beautiful in Spring it’s just lovely but you can never rely on the weather you know it’s
Different every day which is makes it interesting I got to say when I’m making a TV show I’m always stressed out in England Scotland Ireland because I cannot count on good weather and I want good weather LLY what would you advise as far as um in the summer a lot of
People want to avoid the crowds and the heat uh is that an issue in Ireland or would you would you say that’s more lively than the than the shoulder time okay Everything’s changed when I was a we girl we had four seasons and now we’ve just one big confusion last April
Was beautiful July we had the hottest month on record with temperatures away into the 30s which is the ’90s for you um we had the wetest August ever recorded So it’s it’s you know it’s very arbitrary I do think May and September are good months to come and the other
Advantage of May and September is that our children are still at school so you get to go do a lot of the um you know attractions without all school children there on their day trips okay so you’d go for May or September very good next
Gabe so uh jeie I have a question for you um Brian was wondering within Great Britain do you generally recommend commend that people get a British Rail Pass and travel by the rails or do you recommend getting a car oh now some parts of of Britain are
Not covered well by trains for example the CWS so if you were going there you would definitely need a car but by and large I mean we have a wonderful train system and you can get great deals I mean especially for Scotland you can get fantastic you know uh train passes that
You can use on the fair to go to the islands and that kind of thing so it would very much depend which part of the country you wanted to go to by the way I like to make a mix when I go to England I definitely do not want a car for bath
For London for York or Edinburgh uh or Glasgow and I would recommend if you want to have the car is fun because it gives you the power to Tool around and explore the a of sky or the northern part of Wales just or The cotsworld Villages that I would do I would fly
Into London and take the train straight to Bath do bath and then pick up my car in bath then do all the small town stuff turn the car in in Glasgow and then just do a series of big cities back to London Glasgow Edinburgh York London and then
You’re kind of getting the Best of Both Worlds uh because it’s it’s the trains are wonderful in in England too remember Brian we drive on the correct side of the road in this country well my follow-up question I was gonna ask Loi um if you if somebody did in I mean in
Britain or Ireland want to get a car I know a lot of Americans have some trepidation about driving on the wrong side of the road um hey they have trepidation about driving on the right side of the road because they’re used to driving on the
Wrong side so what what tips do you give Americans about driving um in Ireland Loi um just take your time really take your time there are a lot of tourists and a lot of higher cars driving around everybody’s going slowly and carefully one of the comments I get most often
From visitors is thank goodness we have a coach you especially coming around the Sigh head in those windy roads or you come behind an Irish traffic jam like Rick showed us where there’s a flock of sheep in the middle of the road the motor wise are great easy to drive on
But when you come down the the side roads the Hedge RS can be meeting on either side you know there could be somebody in a horse or some pheasants yeah it’s hairy enough you know I’ve been on so many buses either in England Scotland or Ireland where uh the groups
Give the the bus driver a a a Applause when he he or she navigates this or that little nrow passage and I distinctly remember the frustration of being in a car when you can’t see over the hedges and when on your bus you don’t even care
About the hedes you got this High wide beautiful view no stress at all and just enjoying the ride until you get to your hotel I that’s one of the beautiful things about uh having being on a bus tour in Britain and Ireland we also have a question from
Pamela um and Pamela would like to know a lot of Travelers love the pubs of the British Isles the beer the music the rubbing elbows with the locals what are some tips that you have about Pub etiquette though is there anything that people should have in mind do they order
At the bar and then sit down do they sit down and wait for somebody to come to them anything Pub etiquette wise to keep in mind you need to go to the bar to order okay and um just chat to people it’s hard to be lonely you know when you’ve
Got pubs and just in London alone there are three and a half thousand of them so it’s a challenge Lolly what’s your advice for a pub etiquette or Pub strategy um my best advice is when when it comes to drinking Guinness very often when people order a pint of Guinness
Over here as soon as the bartender has poured it they start drinking it but you mustn’t do that you have to let your paint settle so you sit and watch it it takes almost a minute and a half the black becomes blacker the cream becomes creamier and then then Rick’s got it
There and then you drink that first drink right through the cream into the black so as you get a mustache and that’s how you should drink your first step of Guinness you know I had that experience Lolly because I I I don’t know if you when I poured my Guinness of
Course it had the head and I thought everybody’s watching I don’t want to sit here for a minute and wait for it to get down so I I took a zp and I go this is all wrong you’re just getting the foam now we’re ready to enjoy it never rush
The Guinness you know it takes a while to pour it and any good um bartender will let it calm down and and and fill it up very important I think for me the pub means public house it’s where people go to talk and the American traveler should consider themselves really
Interesting really a blessing for that Pub you’re not going to be noisy and just your own little click you’re going to connect with people and you’ve got a story to share and you’re fascinating and you’re confusing and if you are uh a little bit extroverted you’re going to
Have all sorts of friends and I find if you sit at the bar it’s like saying Hey I’m here and I want to talk if you sit with your friend at a table you’re much less likely to get into a conversation um does that does that make sense to you
Genie oh very much so and another thing to bear in mind um there’s often a lot of people outside the pub because you’re not allowed now to smoke inside the pub you see so the smokers will go outside so don’t be put off by thinking oh look
At that big crowd of people go inside there might not be anybody inside interesting and the pub grub is getting better and better and better I I just think it’s amazing this whole gastro pub thing in Ireland Scotland and England excuse me Gabe no no it’s all right
Because I think you’ve kind of answered another question Diane was asking uh for people that don’t drink alcohol like would you still recommend going to a pub and it sounds like the camaraderie and there’s plenty of good food to be had so pubs are kind of a place for everybody
Coffee tea Genie was talk Genie you were weren’t you talking about a zero Guinness yes it’s really good zero alcohol Guinness it’s delicious no we do big ranges of you know zero alcohol wines beers this is the big thing we’re all I do want I do want to clarify that
Because you know we’re always going hey slancha but you don’t need to have alcohol in your hand to be part of the party remember that Europe is really good all over Europe at zero um alcohol beer because there’s such a very strict um um regulations about driving with
Even a little bit there’s there’s no alcohol you are allowed so there’s a designated driver and that person is drinking soft drinks or zero beer and as jeie mentioned it’s really good beer um so remember you can be part of the party whether you drink wine or beer or not
It’s just fun to be there embrace it get a Coke get a zero beer get some kind of a shirle temple and you are right there you’re legit unless you are your own enemy and pull yourself away from it all right well you you’re making me
Want to go across the street to the church ke Pub after this uh rub rub some elbows with my fellow Edmonds people um we have time for one last question and I would like to know from each of you um I mean the British Isles are such an
Iconic destination for so many Travelers what would you say um in your respective country or Rick you can pick either um what is one site that you find to be overrated and what is one site that you find to be underrated Genie let’s start with you people are often a bit disappointed
About The Changing of the Guard they’ll say is that all they do I mean I think they expect them I don’t know to tap dance or juggle or something I mean they’re they’re soldiers they March you know that’s what they do so people often say that um
Ah must see where would I start honestly Gabe if we had all night I could keep you but no well you’ve already gone pretty much all night three o’clock in the morning for our guests here LLY what is your LLY what’s your vat for the most underrated and most overrated and then most
Underrated site in Ireland I think probably for the most overrated N I would go for the whole Temple Bar Precinct of Dublin only because in recent years it’s almost suffered from over tourism and you’re not actually going to find Irish people there anymore it’s you’re just going to find a lot of
Visitors and overpriced beer and overpriced restaurants it’s interesting to walk around it’s very colorful the Cobble streets are picturesque the bar fronts are well worth taking photograph of but it’s very overpriced so that can be disappointing but konam Mara and Mayo out in the west you know if if I’m if I
Die and I’m cremated part of my ashes are going out there you know it’s just an absolutely beautiful beautiful place if you never visit a single place in Europe go out to the west of Ireland it’s perfect wow great answers both of you um I I love that kind of a question
Because um there are underrated places there are overrated places I was thinking the uh over overrated places I’m appalled that the two of the most visited sites in London are the torture dungeon and Madame Tad’s wax Gallery torture dungeon it has it’s just a bunch of papier-mâché Gore It’s got no
Artifacts it’s just a goofy gimmick Madame Tad’s is so greedy it does perfect price discrimination according to the time that you can go and it’s just um it’s just there’s there’s other places that are are really cultural you know they can be entertaining but uh
When you go there you’re not able to go to some other place um in Ireland I think the most overrated is uh the Barne Stone even after covid Cameron who was just there researching our book reported that there’s an hourlong wait every day to kiss the B Stone if you knew what the
Boys in that town did to it last night you would not want to kiss it I’ll tell you that right Lolly it’s horrible it’s horrible and all the cruise groups they get off their cruise ship I don’t know Cove or something and then they make a beine
Where do they go on a cruise ship of all the places in Ireland you’re so close to so much magic they go to bne why because they’ve all heard about bne some I don’t know who told them about bne but they’re hellbent on going to bne and they all
Line up dutifully forgive me while I ran here for a minute but all of these precious people on their precious trip they line up for two hours to kiss that stupid Stone and then they go back to their ship so what can I do so those are the
Most overrated says the most underrated places are the industrial cities in England you got Blackpool and you got Bristol I just just discovered Bristol half an hour past bath I love the industrial cities that are now edgy and creative and Lively in Scotland everybody goes to Edinburgh remember
Glasgow is just 45 minutes away by train and it has Soul it has spirit and in Ireland I would say Belfast is the emerging city that is the industrial city whereas Dublin is the elegant City so of course you see Dublin and of course you see Edinburgh and of course
You see bath but go 4 5 minutes further and connect with those Industrial Age cities those second cities hey what a great conversation Lolly Spence from Ireland and jeie carmichel from London and England you guys are great tour guides I’m I I can imagine people have been commenting who have traveled with
You on a rick Steve’s tour in the past uh they’re just happy to see you I just know the kind of experience that you share and I’m just thankful for for for your passion and to have you on our team and Gabe thank you for hosting so capably tomorrow we’re going to Spain
Then we’re going to Germany we’ve got lots of travels coming your way and I just want to say Happy travels to everybody thanks for joining us and U keep on Traveling good night jeie night good night Lolly enjoy the rest of your whiskey he aric good night SLA good night everybody see you Tomorrow
7 Comments
Thank you
Thank you for posting this! I couldn’t make it for the Festival of Europe live presentation so now I haven’t really missed anything!
Once upon the pond!
Can I you post a video from January 26 On France
These are my favorite places. I lived a year in Yorkshire a long time ago. A comment about the image used for walking Hadrian’s wall:
It's been quite a long time since I was there but I do remember there were signs to not walk on the wall. One walks next to the wall
thanks for this talk; so fun to listen about this beautiful area of the world. i went to ireland solo for two weeks in april and it was just lovely. i combined bus travel, day tours and car hire. the most overrated place i experienced was kylemore abbey. i could have spent five minutes to get a nice pic across the lake but was stuck there for three hours as part of a day tour. 😒 i visited scotland in 2001 and would kill to go again. highlight: glencoe and the highlands overall. england is one of my fav places to visit. i’m currently developing an individual itinerary to get more off the beaten path next time. and this time, i’ll hire a car since i drove in ireland and found it to be very easy after the first day or so of adjustment. 😊
You're right about the ever-changing London skyline. If you ever want updated photos of it, I'm available 😂