Depart the United States today en route to Dublin, Ireland.

Hugging the banks of the River Liffey, Dublin owes much of its architectural appeal to the Anglo-Irish gentry who began investing their income in new town houses during the Georgian period. Embark the Clipper Adventurer this afternoon and set sail for the small fishing villages, medieval cities, and scattered islands that are part of Ireland's legend and legacy. Enjoy the captain's welcome reception and dinner on board this evening.

Ringed by high hills, sea lough, and river valley, Belfast is the bustling capital of Northern Ireland. Much of the city center is pleasantly pedestrianized, with benches where strollers can relax and listen to street musicians.

Explore this vibrant northern metropolis on your own today, or join an optional morning tour that includes visits to City Hall and the Ulster Museum, located in the city's elaborate Botanic Gardens. The museum's best-known collection is the antique gold and silver jewelry recovered by divers in 1968 from the Spanish Armada treasure-ship Girona, wrecked off Giant's Causeway in 1588. This afternoon, delight in the magnificent gardens of 19th-century Stewart House on an optional tour of this National Trust property.

Enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the world as you cruise the North Antrim coast today. We'll anchor at Portrush on Ramore Head, where you may go ashore to explore this charming resort town on your own or join an optional excursion to Giant's Causeway - Ireland's only World Heritage Site - and Bushmills, the oldest legal distillery in the world, licensed by King James I in 1608.

Created by volcanic eruptions and cooling lava, Giant's Causeway is a mass of 40,000 basalt columns that form stepping stones from the cliff foot into the sea. After exploring this awesome site, which the ancient Irish considered the handwork of giants, push on to Bushmills Distillery, where for centuries visitors have been revived with magnums of the King's whiskey.

We stop at the picturesque fishing village of Killybegs this morning, with its whitewashed cottages perched together on the slope above the busy harbor. Explore this charming town on your own today, or join an optional excursion to Glencolmcille (the Glen of St. Columba) and Donegal. In addition to its rich beauty, Glencolmcille contains an enormous number of megalithic remains that are evidence of Stone Age and Celtic-era habitation. While here, visit the Folk Village Museum and Heritage Center.

Proceed to Donegal Town, where you'll tour O'Donnell's Castle, originally constructed in the 15th century by Red Hugh O'Donnell. The castle is a fine marriage of strong defense and domestic grace, boasting mullioned windows, arches, 10 gables, and no fewer than 14 fireplaces.

Return to the Clipper Adventurer for dinner this evening, perhaps catching sight of the magnificent Slieve League cliffs as we set sail for the Aran Islands. Reputed to be the highest marine cliffs in Europe, their craggy faces glow with mineral deposits in tones of amber, white, and red.

Inishmore is a long strip of an island, a great tilted plateau of limestone with a scattering of villages along the sheltered north coast. We drop anchor this morning, and go ashore at Kilronan for an optional tour to Dun Aengus, one of the Aran Islands' most spectacular prehistoric sites. A massive semicircular fort consisting of three concentric enclosures, it sits on high, rugged cliffs that plunge 300 feet into the Atlantic. From the ramparts, gaze out at the field of jagged rocks outside the middle wall, designed to slow down the progress of any attack. Transition to the eighth century - when the Aran Islands were a center of monastic learning - on your visit to the seven churches, an ecclesiastical site of great antiquity which commemorates seven Romans who died here. Late in the afternoon, we depart Kilronan, passing the sheer and ravaged cliffs of Moher.

We anchor off the Dingle Peninsula this morning for a visit to what is perhaps the most romanticized region of all Ireland. Dingle is renowned for its landscape and antiquities - both equally spectacular. On your optional tour today, explore the peninsula, stopping to view the extraordinary array of ruins that dot the landscape. Outside of the Aran Islands, Dingle has the largest concentration of ring forts, beehive huts, oratories, and stone crosses of anywhere in Ireland. As we depart the peninsula this evening, we sail past the Skellig Islands. Little Skellig, a bird sanctuary, is home to more than 40,000 gannets.

Today, we anchor in Glengarriff Harbor and take Zodiacs to Ilnacullin, a small island that is one of Ireland's gardening jewels. The elaborate gardens were begun in the early 1900s, and two of their most popular attractions are the Casita, an Italianate garden with reflecting pool designed by Harold Peto, and a charming walled garden that includes a rare New Zealand tea tree.

From Glengarriff, we sail to Bantry Bay and lovely Bantry House, a graceful example of the privileged life led by the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Sumptuously decorated with French Napoleonic furniture, Gobelin tapestries, and Aubusson carpets, this house is known for the sheer variety of artifacts it contains.

Today, you have three options to choose from. You may explore the lively city of Waterford on your own, viewing the 18th-century shops and houses of O'Connell and George streets or walking along the extensive remains of Viking and Norman city walls near Reginald's Tower.

Or you may join either a half-day or full-day optional tour being offered. Both take you to the world-famous Waterford Crystal Glass Factory, where you will have an opportunity to view the processes involved in glass-cutting and glass-blowing. The half-day tour then returns you to Waterford, where you can continue to explore on your own or return to the ship. The full-day tour continues with lunch at a colorful local pub and then to Kilkenny, Ireland's finest medieval city. Kilkenny Castle sits serenely above the wide sweep of the River Nore, and a pretty humpbacked bridge leads into the picturesque narrow village streets where cottages and buildings have been carefully preserved.

This evening, enjoy dinner on board the Clipper Adventurer as you cruise by the uninhabited Saltee Islands, comprising one of Ireland's most important bird sanctuaries.

Disembark the Clipper Adventurer in Cobh this morning and visit nearby Blarney Castle in County Cork, en route to Adare, reputedly the prettiest village in Ireland. Known primarily as the site of the stone that confers eloquent and persuasive speech to even the most tongue-tied, Blarney Castle is a fine stronghold, built in 1446 by Dermot McCarthy, king of Munster and Lord of Blarney. Supposedly loyal to the colonizing Queen Elizabeth I, he never got around to fulfilling any of the agreements he forged with her emissaries, always sidetracking them with wine, dancing, and sweet talk. In her frustration, the queen is said to have eventually cried out "Blarney, Blarney, what he says he does not mean. It is the usual Blarney." Hence, the word and its meaning entered the English language.

Enjoy a leisurely luncheon and then visit Ansgrove Gardens, arriving in Adare late this afternoon. The long, thin village is a portraiture of neat stone cottages and thatched roofs punctuated by picturesque ruins, all in a woodland setting. Your home-away-from-home for the next two nights is the grand hotel, Adare Manor, built by the Earl of Dunraven in 1832 according to Gothic Revival designs.

Relax in the beautiful environs of Adare Manor today, or join a tour to nearby Limerick, Ireland's third-largest city located on the shores of the River Shannon, with a rich history dating back to the Vikings. Visit King's Island, the first area to be settled by the Vikings and later the heart of the medieval city. The island boasts Limerick's two main landmarks - King John's Castle and St. Mary's Cathedral. In old Irishtown, south of the Abbey River, discover a pocket of Georgian elegance in St. John's Square. Nearby is St. John's Cathedral, whose 280-foot spire is the tallest in Ireland. Continue your tour, traveling a little south of Limerick to visit the Stone Age settlement of Lough Gur, one of whose most impressive sights is the 4,000-year-old Great Stone Circle, discovered in the 1970s when excavations unearthed a concentric series of rectangular, oval, and rounded Stone Age huts. To learn more about the inhabitants and lifestyle of the settlement, visit the interpretive center, housed in replica Neolithic huts. This evening, enjoy a gala farewell reception and dinner at lovely Adare Manor.

After breakfast this morning, transfer to the Shannon airport and board the flight for our return to the United States.