点评:Dermot O'Connor came highly recommended to us as a private tour guide/driver – and what a stroke of Irish luck that was before we even touched Irish soil! It's hard to put into words how much Dermot enriched our first family trip to the Emerald Isle. He's a gracious, affable and patient soul who's also a very adept and capable driver on roads I certainly wouldn't want to negotiate myself. Moreover, he possesses encyclopedic knowledge of Irish history, which enhanced virtually everything we saw or drove through during our visit. We read up on Ireland, talked to friends who've been there and watched some travelogues on YouTube and came up with a list of things we were interested in seeing. From there, Dermot developed a workable itinerary that took us from Dublin to Galway, Killarney, Kilkenny and then back to Dublin, where we parted and were on our own for two days. Dermot gave us free rein to stay at each stop as long as we wished – no pressure to always keep on moving. He showed us some under-the-radar historic gems that underscored his vivid passion for his country's history. Along with that, Dermot has a very droll and keen sense of humor; he felt like family by the time our tour concluded. His 16-person Mercedes-Benz van, nicknamed the Saint Brendan (for reasons he'll explain during your tour), was spacious and comfortable. That's important, because if you want to see different parts of Ireland, you're going to spend a lot of time driving each day; things tend to be far apart and roads that go straight from Point A to Point B are few and far between! But Dermot made it all such a pleasure.
翻译:德莫特·奥康纳作为私人导游兼司机得到了我们极高的推荐——在我们踏上爱尔兰土地之前能有这样的幸运,真是天赐良机啊!很难用言语来形容德莫特为我们的首次全家爱尔兰之行增添了多大的乐趣。他待人友善、亲切又耐心,驾车技术也极为娴熟、能力出众——那些道路即便是我自己也不敢轻易尝试驾驶。此外,他对爱尔兰历史有着如百科全书般的深厚了解。这一切极大地提升了我们此次行程中的体验——无论是我们所看到的还是所经历的。我们查阅了有关爱尔兰的资料,与去过那里的朋友交谈,还在YouTube上观看了一些旅游视频,由此列出了一份自己感兴趣的景点清单。随后,德莫特据此制定了一份可行的行程计划:我们从都柏林出发,先后游览了戈尔韦、基尔拉尼和基尔肯尼,最后返回都柏林。在那里我们各自分开,自由活动了两天。德莫特给予了我们充分的自由——我们可以随心所欲地在每个景点停留多久都行,完全没有必须继续前行的压力。他还带我们去参观了一些鲜为人知的历史名胜,这充分体现了他对本国历史的深厚热情。此外,德莫特还拥有极其风趣且敏锐的幽默感;等到旅行结束时,他已然如同家人一般。他驾驶的那辆可容纳16人的梅赛德斯-奔驰厢式车被昵称为“圣布伦丹号”(具体缘由他会在行程中为大家讲解),车内空间宽敞且舒适。这一点非常重要。因为如果你想游览爱尔兰的不同地区,每天都得花大量时间开车;各个景点往往相距甚远,能从A点直接通往B点的道路也少之又少!不过,德莫特让这一切变得乐趣无穷。