We just got back a few hours ago from our 3-Year anniversary long-weekend trip to Dublin, Ireland. The weather was fantastic, though a bit warm, and we had a nice, relaxing time. Here's a quick sketch of the trip...
Flew out of Bournemouth Airport with Ryanair on Friday morning, an uneventful one-hour flight. We had a fairly quick transfer via shuttle-bus from the Dublin airport to our hotel on the outskirts of the city: The Crowne Plaza. Check-in was a snap, but our room wasn't ready yet (we got there around 11:30 in the morning) so we left our bags with the concierge and headed into the city. Since the hotel was on the outskirts of Dublin, we took a bus. The trip takes about 30 minutes and costs €1.60 each way per person.
The first order of business was to have lunch. K humored by agreeing to go to The Porterhouse, a brewpub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The food was pretty good and their beer was excellent. K had a cheeseburger and I had "Beef and Stout" (a type of stew). We stayed for about an hour, relaxing and listening to all the American tourists around us.
That's one of the first things we noticed about Dublin: there are A LOT of American tourists. I'm not sure if there are more than in London, for example, but it was becoming a challenge to find any Irish people! Our theory is that because it is a much smaller city than London, you have a higher concentration of American tourists than in London. therefore a higher chance of running into them. Speaking of America, Ireland (or just Dublin, at any rate) feels a lot more like the US than England does. We're not really sure why. I postulated a theory that there were perhaps a lot more Irish people settling the US than English people, but I have no idea if that's true or not. If anyone else has a theory, please do tell. Anyway...
After lunch, we meandered towards The Guinness Storehouse, the only tourist activity we had booked for in advance. This place is a giant visitor centre on the brewery property, though you don't get a tour through the actual brewery. With the number of tourists going there each day, I can understand why! It's basically a museum displaying the way Guinness is made. There are 8 floors, but most of the displays are on the first three floors. After that it's just sort of a cool building to walk through. When you get to the top, you can trade in a token for a fresh pint of Guinness. I'd really been looking forward to trying Guinness in Ireland because it has been said that it tastes much better in its home country than it does anywhere else. I found that to be quite true, actually. It was absolutely luscious -- and I drank K's pint to make sure! Much smoother and with a background sweetness that just is not present in the Guinness I've tried anywhere else. It's no wonder because the Guinness you buy in other countries is usually brewed locally (i.e.- most of it is not brewed in Ireland and shipped out). They just wouldn't be able to brew enough to do that.
With two yummy pints of Guinness in my belly, we wandered back through Dublin to O'Connell Street (the Champs Elysee of Ireland) to catch a bus back to the hotel. The bus we got on was quite crowded and we ended up sitting between five or six Irish youths. They were a bit rascally and boisterous. Very entertaining to listen to them carry on in their little Irish accents!
The next day, we got up around 9 and worked out in the hotel gym for an hour. Then had a huge buffet brunch in the restaurant. To choose from: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, white pudding, boiled new potatoes, baked tomatoes, mushrooms, various cereals, yogurt, fresh fruit, rolls, toast, pastries, various juices, coffee, tea, and from-scratch omelettes,
waffles, pancakes, or fried eggs. Needless to say, I was pretty stuffed by the time we left to head back into the city.
K had found a Viking & Medieval Dublin walking tour that we had decided to try on Saturday. It wasn't until 2:30, so we did a little more meandering around the city. Sat in St. Stephen's Park for a little while, then headed to the Dublin Tourist Centre to buy our tickets for the tour. There was about a half hour to kill and a pub just across the road. A perfect scenario for savoring another Guinness! Still didn't manage to convince K that it was luscious, though.
The walking tour sucked. No, really. It was boring as hell, the 60-70-year-old guide couldn't project her voice and seemed pained to tell us any of the history. And, judging by the tour alone, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of Viking history in Dublin. I'm sure there is, but she just didn't seem to familiar with any of it. It was a two-hour tour and we stuck it out though both of us were contemplating ducking out when the guide was looking the other way.
After the tour, we ambled a little more and kept our eyes open for a place to have dinner. There are plenty of restaurants, but we were feeling quite choosy. In the end, we settled for a place called The Bad Ass Cafe ("Ass" is in "Donkey") with kitschy decor and a lively atmosphere. We each had a pizza and then headed back to the hotel by bus, again. No hooligans this time.
Back at the hotel, we were dismayed to find out that the air conditioner in our hotel room had not been fixed (it wasn't working and consequently we didn't sleep very good the first night) despite having told the front desk about it before leaving. I called reception and told them about it. The manager came up to our room and tried to fix it, but was unsuccessful, so he moved us to a different room. Since a room of the same calibre was not available (and to make up for the "inconvenience" of moving to a new room), he upgraded us to a suite on the "Club" Floor. He said the AC works and it's a nicer room. Come to find out, that was a bit of an understatement.
We had been upgraded to an executive suite with themed decor. It had a king-size bed, a spacious bathroom, two TVs, an office "nook", and a gorgeous view of the park. It was decorated in the style of a Ducati racing motorcycle (you have to see it to believe it). Very quirky! I called the manager right away and thanked him again. What luck! We spent the rest of the evening lounging in our complimentary robes, watching "rubbish" on the widescreen flat-panel TV.
The next day was a chill-out-at-the-hotel day. We had another big breakfast and then walked up the road a piece to check out the mall. It was a bit trite, so it took all of 15 minutes to walk through it. However, connected to it was a multiplex movie theatre. And Ocean's 13 was due to start in 20 minutes, so we bought tickets. The theatre was really nice. Comfy stadium seating and swanky decor. The movie theatres in Bournemouth don't have stadium seating, so it was really nice to watch a movie under the proper viewing conditions. And the movie was entertaining enough... brain candy. After that, we walked back to the hotel, cutting through the park. We (and be "we" I mean "I") had a Guinness at the hotel bar then we went back up to our swanky suite to relax a bit before dinner-time.
Unfortunately, we had an early wake-up call this morning, so we had to get to bed at a reasonable hour last night. Otherwise, we probably would have stayed up later to enjoy the cushy lifestyle we had become accustomed to in the Ducati suite. We had to take the 6am shuttle to the airport so there was no time for a buffet breakfast this morning (the restaurant opens at 6), but I was able to get in there to slap some pieces of bacon between two pieces of toast and then take it with me, almost making us miss the bus in the process.
Check-in was no problem but our plane was delayed, so we got home about an hour later than we should have. That's really the only hiccup and not much of a hiccup at that. All in all, we had a wonderfully relaxing weekend and we're really glad we did this. We didn't fall in love with Ireland though. Didn't get the same pull-at-your-heart-strings feeling we got in the Scottish Highlands. And it was completely different than we imagined, not least of which because of the uncharacteristic warm weather. However, it's not quite fair to write Ireland off based on its capitol city. The countryside and the smaller towns are probably very enchanting. It was so easy to get there, so you never know, we might make another trip over at some point. Hell, it would be worth it for the Guinness alone!
...MORE pictures from the trip...
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