Ireland Motorcycle Tour – The Forty Shades of Green

Your Ireland motorcycle tour begins at the Rotterdam ferry terminal: after arriving independently and boarding, the ferry departs around 21:00 towards Hull in Great Britain. You spend the night comfortably on board, your motorcycle safely stowed, while you look forward to the stages through Wales and Ireland.

This self-guided Ireland tour starts with a crossing of Great Britain: from Hull you ride around 350 kilometres to the Snowdonia region on the Welsh coast. Those who wish can take time for a detour into Snowdonia National Park before the night in Conway or Caernarfon.

Via Holyhead the ferry takes you to Dublin, where the Irish capital gives you a brief welcome before the Galway motorcycle tour begins in earnest. Through the peaceful Midlands you reach Galway in the west of Ireland, a city with a palpable Spanish heritage and a relaxed atmosphere on the Atlantic.

A loop through Connemara is on today's programme – one of the wildest and most romantic landscapes on this Connemara motorcycle tour. Past the Twelve Bens range, Kylemore Abbey and Ireland's only fjord, Killary Harbour, the route returns to Galway.

Heading south, the Cliffs of Moher motorcycle tour awaits: cliffs that drop over 200 metres vertically into the Atlantic. Right next door lies the karst landscape of the Burren with its treeless stone plateau before the ride continues to Ennis.

The Dingle Peninsula motorcycle tour takes you along the coastal road to the cliffs of Slea Head, the Gallarus Oratory and the colourful fishing village of Dingle in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht. Via Killarney with the Muckross manor house, you reach Kenmare.

This Ireland motorcycle tour takes you today onto the most famous scenic road in the country: between the Atlantic and the MacGillycuddy's Reeks past the picturesque Sneem, the Staigue Stone Fort and the Skellig Coast Road to Portmagee.

Via Cashel with the famous Rock of Cashel and the Hore Abbey ruin, the Kilkenny motorcycle tour continues to your day's destination. In a compact area you find significant buildings from various periods of Irish history.

This Wicklow Mountains motorcycle tour passes through the 'Garden of Ireland': past the early Christian monastic site of Glendalough, along the old military road and through the grounds of Powerscourt House before you reach Dublin with its Trinity College.

After eleven days on the Ireland motorcycle circuit, it is time to say goodbye: the ferry takes you from Dublin to Holyhead and then around 350 kilometres back to Hull, where the evening boarding towards Rotterdam takes place.

In the morning you arrive in Rotterdam, where this Burren, Ring of Kerry and Connemara motorcycle tour reaches its conclusion. Left behind are many kilometres of winding back roads and memories of the forty shades of green.