March 21st, 2013 - Dublin & Cliffs of Moher
Temple Bar
Jackie and I arrived in Dublin around noon on Thursday and we quickly dropped our stuff off at our hostel, Jacob's Inn, so that we could explore this great city. We made our way across the River Liffey over to the Temple Bar area which was packed for weekend considering Sunday was St. Patrick's Day. We shopped for our St. Patrick's Day outfits in one of the tons of "Carroll's" stores which have any and every Irish themed t-shirt, necklace, and garb you can think of. We walked through the shopping district and through Trinity College as well. We met up with the rest of our friends who were meeting us in Dublin (Steph, Savannah and her boyfriend Addison) back at our hostel before dinner. We headed to a place called The Auld Dubliner which has live music (of course) and we ate our first meal of fish and chips! People here put malt vinegar on their french fries, which might sound weird to you, but it's a favorite I've grown up with from all the vacations at the beach in Rhode Island, so it was interesting to see them eating it there too! At night, all of the bars are packed while everyone listens to the live bands. This is what I loved most about Ireland, the live music! We didn't stay out too late on this first night because we had to be up early for our full day tour from Dublin to the east coast of Ireland that started at 8am. We did manage to find a bar, which I'm sad I can't remember the name because they had the best music! Jackie, Steph and I ended up making friends with these women in their late 20's that kept pulling us out onto the dance floor trying to teach us how to Irish step dance...we were pros by the end of the night...ha.
We had a bit of a rough start to finding the bus that would take us on our full day bus tour because our directions said meet at the "tourist office on O'Connell St." Well as it turned out, there were about 3 different tourist offices on O'Connell St...so needless to say we were a little out of breath by the time we found the right spot and quickly boarded the bus...at 7:59am...for our 8am tour, haha. This was such a great tour and I definitely recommend anyone who is going to Ireland to do it for the day! It's through PaddyWagon Tours and it's a 12-hour tour for around 40 euros! We stopped in various locations along the way to the Cliffs of Moher including Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey and the "baby" Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs were absolutely amazing! On this night we went to The Celt, another bar we were recommended because of the music.
On Saturday, we got dressed in all our St. Patrick's Day garb and headed to the Guinness Factory for a tour! The tour takes you through the entire brewing process and we all learned how to "Pour the Perfect Pint." We spent most of our day here because there was so much to see and do! We all got dinner at a place called The Grand Central then headed to a bar called O'Shea's to celebrate St. Patrick's Day eve!
Unfortunately we had to leave early Sunday morning so we missed the St. Patrick's Day parade, but we did get to go to Stockholm, Sweden for part of our day, haha. We had a layover before flying to Zurich, so that was cool! It was definitely a successful and fun 10-day!
We had a bit of a rough start to finding the bus that would take us on our full day bus tour because our directions said meet at the "tourist office on O'Connell St." Well as it turned out, there were about 3 different tourist offices on O'Connell St...so needless to say we were a little out of breath by the time we found the right spot and quickly boarded the bus...at 7:59am...for our 8am tour, haha. This was such a great tour and I definitely recommend anyone who is going to Ireland to do it for the day! It's through PaddyWagon Tours and it's a 12-hour tour for around 40 euros! We stopped in various locations along the way to the Cliffs of Moher including Dunguaire Castle, Corcomroe Abbey and the "baby" Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs were absolutely amazing! On this night we went to The Celt, another bar we were recommended because of the music.
On Saturday, we got dressed in all our St. Patrick's Day garb and headed to the Guinness Factory for a tour! The tour takes you through the entire brewing process and we all learned how to "Pour the Perfect Pint." We spent most of our day here because there was so much to see and do! We all got dinner at a place called The Grand Central then headed to a bar called O'Shea's to celebrate St. Patrick's Day eve!
Unfortunately we had to leave early Sunday morning so we missed the St. Patrick's Day parade, but we did get to go to Stockholm, Sweden for part of our day, haha. We had a layover before flying to Zurich, so that was cool! It was definitely a successful and fun 10-day!