2023 Trip 6, Part 2, Days 3-4, Dublin, Ireland

This post will cover our second two days in Dublin, Ireland.

Day 3

The day started with another delicious Irish breakfast, this time with a screaming child. It was the first screaming child on this trip, but not the last. Even though it had not started to rain yet, we took a cab to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour because of the distance from our hotel. It was just under two miles away, but we planned on doing a lot of walking during the day and even walking back to the hotel at the end of the day. It only made sense to ride to Guinness and walk the rest of the day.

Arthur Guinness was so confident in his beer being successful, he signed a 9,000-year lease. Here it is, proudly displayed at the storehouse.

The tour was all about the making of Guinness beer. Of course, there was some Guinness tasting at the end. Wink, wink. Did you know the word beer is believed to have originated from the Anglo Saxon word Baere, meaning barley.

Here are some of the ingredients used to make Guinness.

The process of making Guinness.

Here is the barrel making process. Guinness makes all of their own barrels.

From there we went upstairs, down the psychedelic hallway, and into the tasting room. Cue the angels singing.

In the tasting room, there were these tall white pedestals that had a kind of fog coming out of them. They had the aroma of either the beer, or its different ingredients.

You went around the room smelling the different aromas while your freshly poured beer settled.

The sample was small, but delicious. The next part of our visit was the advertising area. Here are some of the advertising ideas they have used over the years.

Guinness has used the harp as its logo since 1862. In 1922, the Irish Free State government also chose the harp as its symbol, and it remains the symbol of the country of Ireland today. Because Guinness used it first, the country’s harp is a mirror image of the Guinness harp to avoid trademark issues.

Finally, we made our way to the roof top pub for a pint of the delicious dark nectar. There were some pretty good views as well.

We highly recommend this self-guided tour, so there is a link at the end of this post. We started our walk toward the Jameson Distillery in some light rain, looking for somewhere to have lunch. Here are a few interesting pictures from our walk.

Our first stop was at “The Brazen Head,” Irelands oldest pub, established in 1754, but has been the site of a merchant’s dwelling dating back to at least 1613.

We walked in and it immediately smelled of fish, and not necessarily in a good way. When you are dining with Cindy the super sniffer, this was an immediate “NO!” Plus, they were just starting to seat a tour bus full of people, so we were not going to get a seat right away. We continued on and found “The Failte.” This was an interesting pub with good food. I had the Moroccan lamb chili with rice and Cindy and Sylvia wanted to order the chicken club sandwich. They assumed it would be like a chicken club sandwich here in the states. After a lengthy discussion with the waitress to ensure they were not going to get a chicken salad sandwich, they ordered the chicken club. It turned out to be a chicken salad sandwich. Some things just do not translate from English to English. Here is the restaurant and my delicious meal.

Even though my meal was really good, they only get a 3.5 for serving chicken salad as a chicken club. It was time to head over to Jameson for our tour there. Whiskey. MMMMMMM.

Here are a few pictures from inside.

There had been a direct descendant of John Jameson in charge of the company until 1966.

We have been on so many distillery tours I feel like I can make my own whiskey now. Jamesons’s process is similar to everyone else’s process, with the exception of not using limestone filtered water and triple distilling their whiskey.

I’m not saying I was jonesing to have some whiskey, but I was ready to try some whiskey. Here were our three tastings from Jameson: Crested; the regular Jamesons; and Black Label.

Let’s just say Cindy is still not a whiskey fan.

I did not like the Crested, liked the regular Jamesons, and loved the Black Label.

My only regret was that my good friend Todd could not be there with me to enjoy these delicious whiskeys.

Here are a few more pictures from our tour. This is a must stop, so check out the link at the end of this post.

We headed out walking in a very light rain again.

We passed a bakery that surely had a playful and misleading name.

Nope. Very accurate name.

As we tried to get away from the creepy bakery, this was the bar across the street.

I’m not sure where we were, but we moved on quickly. We walked further down and Sylvia had enough of all the walking and took a break. Cindy and I continued on to the Ha’Penny Bridge. It was built in May of 1816 of cast iron and spans the River Liffey.

We returned to Sylvia and decided to eat at The Winding Stair, because it was very close to where we were, it was highly rated, and we were able to get a last-minute reservation right as they were opening. Here is our arrival and the inside.

From our table, I could watch the chefs preparing our food.

The food smelled really good and was making us hungry. I ordered the grilled cod with peas and bacon, Sylvia ordered the salmon with potatoes two ways, and Cindy ordered a steak with broccolini and chips (fries). Here is what my meal looked like.

My cod came with the skin still attached and fried to a crisp. I have never like fish with the skin still attached, but I had to try it anyway. It was off the charts delicious, as was everything else on my plate. This was hands down the best meal I had eaten in a very long time, and would turn out to be the best meal I would have in Ireland. Both Cindy and Sylvia absolutely loved their meals as well. We had a NY Cheesecake for dessert, and it was also the best we have all had in quite some time. Our waiter was really funny and there was not one bad thing we could say about the restaurant. On the link scale, we all gave it a 6. That is very impressive considering the scale only goes to 5. If you are in Dublin, you MUST do whatever it takes to eat here, so use the link at the end of this post. After our amazing meal, we walked the 1/2 mile back to our hotel in a moderate rain. Ya just gotta love the rain in Ireland.

Day 4

We all woke up early after another noisy night, and I was really fed up. Before I could call the front desk, Cindy noticed one of our windows was open a few inches. What the heck? We have stayed in hundreds of hotels and it is very rare a window will open, let alone a window on the 4th floor. We closed the window and it was silent. Mark that down as another lesson learned. We had our usual delicious buffet breakfast with a screaming child, and hopped into a cab headed to the Trinity College campus. Why didn’t we walk? Because it was raining pretty good, that’s why. We arrived early for our tour to see the Book of Kells, so we did our best to stay out of the constant rain.

First, some information about Trinity College. Queen Elizabeth I founded the college in 1592. It is Ireland’s oldest university. Academically, it is divided into three faculties comprising 23 schools, offering degree and diploma courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The admission procedure is based exclusively on academic merit, with the college being known for programs in law, literature and humanities. Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and Bram Stoker are just three of the many famous people who have attended Trinity College.

Here are some pictures from the beginning of our tour of the campus. Most of the first parts of our tour was outside in the rain, so we were happy with the parts that were inside.

This was a strange piece of art on the campus. Very Death Star like.

Next came the School’s Library which houses the Book of Kells display. So what is the Book of Kells? The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript and Celtic Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Ireland or Scotland. It is believed to have been created around 800 AD. It is regarded as a masterwork of Western calligraphy. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, County Meath, which was its home for centuries. Thankfully, the rest of the tour was inside out of the rain.

The actual Book of Kells is in its own room behind glass. It is opened so you can see two pages and you are not allowed to take any photographs. It was awe inspiring to stand in front of a book that was at least 1,500 years old.

In addition to housing The Book of Kells, the Library is also the permanent home to the Brian Boru harp, which is the national symbol of Ireland, and a copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Our next part of the tour was the college’s massive Library Hall. Since April of this year, they have been removing all of the books from the great hall. That is over 200,000 books. So far, they have moved almost all of the books, with only 20,000 remaining. Once the books are safely removed, they will add a fire system to protect the building and its valuable contents in case of fire. They expect the project to be completed by 2028. Here are some pictures of the great hall.

Here are pictures of the Brian Boru harp and a copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

This is a must visit when in Dublin. See the link at the end of this post. We walked from the college to “Reyna Turkish Grill” for some lunch. They made and baked their own pita bread on site.

I had some grilled chicken and rice and Cindy and Sylvia had chicken wraps. The food was good, but nothing to write home about. We set off again, in the rain again, and wanted to walk by the Temple Bar to get some pictures. The Temple Bar is the ultimate tourist destination and from what we had read, always crowded. As we arrived, a couple left a table near the bar, that also had a view of the stage where a man was playing live Irish music. We had to sit for a bit and have a pint.

They had a doorway surrounded with law enforcement patches. I could not find one for Los Angeles County, and as luck would have it, I had one in my pocket. I gave it to our server and he put it right up.

Even though this place is considered a “tourist trap,” we had a great time and recommend a visit. The link is at the end of this post. Our next stop was to see the famous Molly Malone statue on Suffolk Street, in front of the Tourist Information Office. The statue represents a possibly real woman from the 17th century who sold fish (a fish hawker) from a cart by day and was a prostitute by night. At the site of the statue, we saw someone had vandalized it by spraying, “Please don’t T.Y,” across the chest. Not cool at all. Here is what we saw.

We sent the picture to Corrianne and she cleaned it up for us. This is much better.

We continued our walk and went to Christ Church Cathedral for a self-guided tour. Christ Church Cathedral is also known as The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. It is one of the two medieval cathedrals in the city, the other being St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The cathedral was founded in the early 11th century, was rebuilt in stone in the late 12th century, and considerably enlarged in the early 13th century. We were really excited to see something that had been around over 1,000 years. Here is the outside.

Here are some inside pictures.

Here are some of the stained-glass windows.

They have an interesting object with a great story. They have the actual 800-year-old heart of Irish Saint Laurence O’Toole. It is encased in what looks like a stone heart. In 2012, the heart was stolen and was missing for six years. It was recovered and returned to the church. It was rumored the thieves had returned the heart because it was cursed and loved ones of the thieves were dying of unexplained heart attacks. Once the heart was returned, the mysterious heart attack deaths stopped.

We also toured the catacombs under the church. There were graves, displays, and a gift shop down there.

Lastly, here are two famous residents of the church, a mummified cat and rat.

This was another amazing place we highly recommend you visit. You know the drill and where the link is. We walked around again, in the rain, looking for somewhere interesting for dinner.

We ended up at an Italian diner named, “Milano.” We had a shrimp and vegetable thing that was very good. It came with pizza dough biscuits that were also very good. We then split a pizza of prosciutto, mushrooms, and olives. It was delivered to our table with a pizza cutter because they do not cut it for you. Cut or uncut, it was pretty good too.

Dessert was NY cheesecake that was average at best. We gave Milano a solid 4 on the link rating system and walked home in a light rain.

That concludes our wet and interesting stay in Dublin. Stay tuned for the next post that will cover our two day stay in Kilkenny. Where is that? Right here.

LINKS

Christ Church Cathedral

2023 Trip 6, Part 1, Days 1-2 in Dublin, Ireland

This post will cover our first two days in Dublin, Ireland at the beginning of our trip. Everything we read and heard about Dublin was you should not rent a car there; you should walk, take public transportation, or a taxi. This turned out to be accurate and very good advice.

Day 1 Travel to Dublin

We got to LAX very early because we have never flown internationally before, but we have flown out of the international terminal before and it is huge with a lot of walking. This was a very wise choice. First, we had to go through regular security, not our normal pre-check. Freaking Aer Lingus did not carry over our pre-check number when they rebooked our cancelled flight. It was not a huge ordeal, just another reason to dislike them. Plus, why should we be exposed to the regular travel riff raff when we have pre-check. It was just beneath us I say!! Anyway, after security, we walked a solid 20 minutes to the central hub of the international terminal, where we way overpaid for a light dinner. After our meal, we looked for our gate, 203. There was a sign for Gate 203 pointing down a long hallway. As we started to walk in that direction, I looked out a window and jokingly told Cindy and Sylvia I could see our gate and it was far away.

I was joking because we were looking at a building that looked like it was actually in another state, it was so far away. We all laughed and had a closer look.

Yes, we were on a long trek to our gate. We got there in time to see a rare and beautiful Los Angeles sunset.

Once on the plane, we tried to get comfortable and get some sleep.

Sylvia and I had the standard neck pillows, while Cindy’s delicate neck could not be bothered with one. She had to have the special order “turtle.” After the flight, Cindy’s exact review was, “It sucked.” So much for the turtle. We finally left Los Angeles at around 8:30 PM (half 8 if you remember the words from my last post) and 10 1/2 hours later, landed in Dublin at 2 PM local time. This is the airport from outside. Notice no rain yet. That was a positive.

When we picked up our bags, Cindy and I saw we both had a zipper ripped off of our suitcase.

With all of the flights we have taken, this has never happened to us before. And to have it happen to both of us on the same flight, crazy. Even though we were able to get some sleep on the flight, it was not a lot of sleep. Add to that the fact it was 6 AM back in Los Angeles, and we were a bit trashed. Luckily, we had purposely not scheduled any activities for landing day just for this reason. We got in the taxi “cue,” and didn’t have to wait too long before we were off to our hotel. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in the Dublin City Centre. It was a great location for sightseeing in Dublin without a car. Here is a picture of our room.

We got settled in and walked up and down our street checking out all of the restaurants. Here is what the street in front of our hotel looked like.

It was still only partly cloudy and pretty nice out. We walked over to a grocery type store and discovered the difficulty in finding distilled water discussed in great detail in the last post. To add insult to injury, Cindy lost her credit card and it most likely happen at that store. The card was never found, but was also never used by anyone else. I had brought a second card as a backup, so this was not the end of the world.

We ended up eating at “Toddy Bar and Brasserie,” right next door to our hotel.

If you’re like me, you are probably wondering why anyone would want to eat in a bar and bra. It turns out a brasserie is actually a type of French restaurant with a relaxed setting, which serves single dishes and other meals. Now that makes more sense.

I ordered a Guinness, Sylvia ordered a Coors light, which shockingly was available almost everywhere on tap, the only American beer to be that available on tap, and Cindy had some white wine. Sylvia didn’t understand how I could drink such a dark beer, so I had her take a sip of mine.

She loved it and ended up ordering many more over the course of this trip. On to the meals. I had the fish and chips, which was delicious. Cindy and Sylvia split some braised beef ribs that they said were a bit chewy. The ribs also came with some champ and broccoli that they both enjoyed. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being link worthy and everything else not, Toddys earned a solid 4.

As we exited the restaurant, it had clouded over, but still was not raining yet. We were wondering if we were going to have a rain free day our first day in Ireland. The girls headed back to the hotel while I searched for and eventually found very expensive distilled water. And it sprinkled on me on the way back to the hotel. A rain free day was not meant to be.

It also rained that night. Plus, the windows in our room must have been a very poor quality because we could hear every voice and traffic sounds from the busy street below us. Even with the rain, there were people loud on the street until about 4 AM.

Day 2 Dublin

We had scheduled a bus tour of Northern Ireland that would take us to the Titanic Museum in Belfast and the Giants Causeway on the north coast. Northern Ireland is still part of England, so technically, we visited a second country on this trip. Even though there were no border walls, they did use British pounds as there currency instead of the Euro. We had brought some pounds with us, so we were prepared. We had a delicious Irish breakfast buffet at our hotel, without any screaming children. This would be one of the few breakfasts without a screaming child. I’m a firm believer that if your child insists on screaming needlessly in public, you should give them something to scream about. But that’s just me and that is a topic for a completely different blog post. Once breakfast was complete, we walked across the street to get our bus for the day’s tour. After a 2 1/2-hour bus ride, we arrived in Belfast at the Titanic Museum. Next door was Titanic Studios, a sound stage where many scenes from Game of Thrones had been filmed.

We were originally scheduled for a 2 hour visit at the museum, but our tour was running a bit late, so we only had just over an hour and a half. That seemed a little quick for a museum visit. Two hours would have been perfect, but we made the shorter time period work. The museum covered the building of the Titanic all the way to when it sank. Here is some of what we saw.

We went on this ride that showed how the steel was smelted and assembled. The ride broke within a minute of us getting on it. Luckily, it started moving again within five minutes, so we didn’t waste too much of our shortened time.

Here is a first-class cabin. It was a decent size and very well appointed with its own bathroom.

This was a lower-class cabin. It was pretty small, with a bunk bed and sink next to the bed. You had to use a shared bathroom down the hall.

Here are some of the wireless messages sent and received by the Titanic after the iceberg was hit, and up until a few minutes before she sank. CQD is a distress call, like SOS. Some say it stands for Come Quick Disaster, some say it was simply a distress call.

They only had a few actual items recovered from the Titanic. Here are three of them.

Overall, the museum was interesting, and worth a stop if you are in the area and have a little extra time. That being said, I would not go out of your way to schedule a stop here if you are pressed for time.

Our next stop was at Dunluce Castle, or what remains of it. The present castle ruins date mainly from the 16th and 17th centuries. It was inhabited by both the feuding McQuillan and MacDonnell clans. It is situated right on the edge of a cliff, making for some fantastic views. Take a look.

It was amazing to stand inside a place that has existed for over 700 years. If only the walls could talk. As for the weather, it was a light to moderate rain the entire time we were there. We had our rain jackets and umbrellas ready, so it was fine.

When our guide took this picture for us, he told us to yell, “Yeah” and throw our arms up. One of our fellow tour mates snuck in and photo bombed us doing just that. Look at the left side of the picture. We ended up talking to her on the bus and we all had a good laugh.

This place was very link worthy and there is one at the end of this post.

The next stop was for lunch at “The Nook.” This was an average sized pub just outside of the Giant’s Causeway.

The food was good, but not great. This is where we learned a chicken sandwich with mayo is a chicken salad sandwich. I gave this pub a 3.5 rating on the link scale. After our meal, we walked over to a shuttle bus for a short ride to the Giants Causeway. The causeway is a series of rock formations at the ocean’s edge where many of the rocks have split into a geometric pattern, hexagonal basalt stones.

The legend goes (per the internet) the causeway was created by a mythological Irish giant called Finn McCool. After a high-tempered Scottish giant called Benandonner made a claim for Finn’s island of Ireland, the giant Finn McCool started angrily throwing boulders into the sea off the Antrim coastline in Northern Ireland. Inspired by the way they fell into the water, Finn decided to use his boulders to make a bridge or a causeway – a Giant’s Causeway – all the way to Scottland’s Isle of Staffa. Using his causeway to Scotland, he goes to challenge his rival to a proper duel over the fate of Ireland. In the giant world, where size dictates winners and losers, Finn realizes he has underestimated his enemy – Benandonner is a giant, even for a giant! Brute force won’t work on him – so Finn quickly returns to Ireland via his Giant Causeway and decides the best way to beat Benandonner is to con him. Leaving the Giant’s Causeway for Benandonner to find, Finn McCool’s wife disguises him as a baby. When his rival arrives, he finds Finn’s wife Sadhbh (common spelling) tending to her enormous baby giant. Realizing that if Finn’s child was this big, Finn himself must be huge. The Scottish giant Benandonnar hurries away, retreating back to Scotland with his tail between his legs. As he hurries home, he frantically tears away bits of the causeway, severing all ties between Scotland and Ireland to prevent Finn McCool from following him.

The area is really amazing. Finn McCool did a pretty good job. Unfortunately, it started to rain pretty hard while we were on the rocks, so we high tailed it out of there. We tried to return to the bus, but it had moved so we hung out inside The Nook for a bit. Once the rain slowed down, we went back outside to wait for the bus. Back on the bus, we settled in for the ride back. For some unknown reason, our bus dropped us off about a quarter of a mile from where it picked us up. In a light rain. What the heck was that?

We walked to Murray’s Public House, another pub very close to our hotel. We were seated near the bar and had a slight glimpse of the live Irish music band.

I had the Irish stew with lamb and Cindy and Sylvia split a roast beef meal. They said the roast beef was only average. My Irish stew was in the very good category.

This restaurant earned a 4 on the link scale. After finishing our drinks and listening to some good live Irish music, we walked back to our hotel to get some shut eye. It was another noisy night, but this time it was more traffic noises than people noises. I hoped I got the post stay survey so I could rip them on the poor quality of their exterior windows.

This concludes the post of our first two days in Dublin, Ireland. Next up will be our next two days in Dublin. Keep your knickers dry until then.

LINKS

Dunluce Castle

Giant’s Causeway