We landed on Thursday night about 7:30 PM and the airport is like 45 minutes north of the "City Center". Our hotel was only about 20 minutes north of the "City Center" in an area known as Ballymun. Anyways, the first night we went to the center to grab some food and see what the city had to offer. We took to the bus down and walked around the main street known as O'Connell Street. The first tourist attraction you see on this street is known as "The Spire" which was built recently and it is just a huge really really tall pole for a lack of a better word. It is incredibly tall and can be used as a reference point while walking in the city. We continued our journey across the River Liffey(which separates the north side and south side of town) over to the "Temple Bar" region. We heard lots of live music in places we walked by, but we were starving. The problem was not many food places were open at 9 when we got to the city. We found a little hole in the wall place serving Traditional Irish Food and we stopped. I ordered the Irish Stew and it was god awful. I am not particularly picky when it comes to food, but this was incredibly sour stew that was just not very good at all. After eating, we walked around a bit more until we headed back to to O'Connell street where we caught our bus back to Ballymum for the night. As we checked into our hotel(which was incredibly cheap) the person working the front desk ended up being from the small town of Poland that the name Stodolka actually comes from. Small world.
Monument on O'Connell Street.
River Liffey.
"The Spire" at night.
On Friday we woke up and took the bus back to the city. We walked from O'Connell Street which is on the north east part of town to the south west part of town where the Guinness Brewery is. It is a good walk and we walked along the Liffey. The brewery is something to see. It was very fun and interesting. The building is built around a model pint glass and is 7 floors high. There is something to see on each floor. The bottom floors are all about the ingredients that they use in the beer. As you walk up the building(making your way to the top of the pint glass other floors include fermentation process, brewing, how to pour a perfect pint, advertising, sponsorship, and history of the building and beer around the world. At the top, there is a cold pint waiting for you along with a 360 degree panoramic view of the whole city of Dublin. It was a intriguing view.
On our way to the brewery.
Really cool part of the tour. Showed you how to make the old kegs that it was stored in.
The original Harp that is there logo.
Examples to advertisement.
Perfect Pint.
View of the city from the top
Another View.
After the tour we walked back along the south side of the river towards Grafton Street and Trinity College. However, we couldn't pass up "The Brazen Head" pub. It is the oldest pub in Dublin. Stopped there for a quick pint before heading to our destination.
After reaching our destination and seeing Grafton Street along with Trinity College, we headed up to "The Glimmerman" pub, which was my cousin Nicks favorite pub while he studied in Dublin. Tried to meet the ever so famous Ollie and Liverpool Tony but they were not to be found. There was a lot of local people in here and there accents were incredibly hard understand. Had a pint of Beamish, a very good ale. Headed back to Temple Bar area where we spent the night listening to great live music. The pub was packed with people and everyone was singing along.
Bar we spent Friday night at.
Nicks favorite pub.
Good beer at Nicks favorite pub.
Really good guitar player and the band we listened to on Friday night.
Packed bar.
Saturday we woke up and headed back into town. We tried to find a good market to go to but had no such luck. As we were walking towards the Dublin Zoo we ran across the Saint Patrick's Cathedral and the Dublin Castle. Very fun stuff to see. We made our way to the zoo and spent two hours there. So much fun animals to see. Saturday Night we went to a couple pubs in search of good live Irish music. We went to Kehoe's, The Globe, Mercantile, Sweeneys and others. Found some really good Irish Music and listened for a couple hours before moving on to the next pub. It was a blast and really good music. It got kind of late and we headed home.
Fun stuff on Grafton Street.
Really cool carving.
Saint Patrick's Park.
The Cathedral.
Castle walls.
Cold Monkey.
Huge Gorilla.
Tigers.
Rhino.
Hippo.
After the zoo and heading to see the Irish music we headed back to the hotel. It was an exhausting weekend walking all over the town. Sunday we just had lunch and then headed to the airport making it back to London. That wrapped up our trip to Dublin. Very fun weekend.
Cheers
Jimmy
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