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