Dublin

MONDAY

We arrived in Dublin and caught the 747 bus right outside the airport and went into the city. We found this lunch place on Google Maps called The Brazen Head, which is right near the river and our hostel. We really liked the atmosphere and the food there was good, so we decided to come back the next day for lunch as well.

The hostel we were staying at was called Garden Lane Hostel, and it was pretty conveniently located. The staff there was super nice and accommodating. Our room was quite small and it was kind of weird that Leigh and I were sleeping on opposite bunk beds. The rooms and bathrooms were extremely clean (they clean their bathrooms three times a day!). The walk from our hostel to the main attractions took no longer than 15-20 minutes.

Our first stop was to Trinity College and the Books of Kells/Library. It costs €6 to get into both the Book of Kells and the Library. We highly recommend going in . It was amazing to see the actual Book of Kells and the history behind it and the library looked like something out of Harry Potter. We then went to Grafton Street, a shopping strip that has musicians and different department store.  We stopped at Temple Bar to get a quick take a picture, but didn’t stop in because it was very crowded. For dinner we went to Bunsen Burger, which is right across the street from Temple Bar. It was super yummy and probably had one of my favorite vanilla milkshakes.

TUESDAY

We started off our morning at Elephant and Castle, an American breakfast restaurant. It was so nice to have a real American breakfast, compared to our usual light breakfast that we usually have back in Italy. It was super yummy and cheap. I got two eggs, toast, potatoes, and meat and it was only €7.5. I definitely recommend stopping here for one of your meals. We then went to St Patrick’s Cathedral. We decided to go in thinking it would be quick look around. It was €5 to get in. They had just started a tour, and we got to join. Free tour lasting thirty minutes- we really enjoyed it and got an in-depth history of the Cathedral.

We stopped at Guinness Storehouse for a tour and met up with other roommate and her boyfriend (they were in London, but took a five hour day trip to Dublin). We didn’t realize that the tour was mostly self-guided. There are seven floors, in a pint shape (only two or three floors have actual information). Then at the top, we got a free pint of Guinness. It was very modern looking inside and we suggest buying tickets online before going in. We again ate at The Brazen Head for lunch again. For dinner, we went to The Old Storehouse and it was great. We got the Seafood Chowder (I suggest getting the starter portion), and there was live Irish music playing which we enjoyed listening to. We then went back to Temple Bar to see the lights at night. We came up hanging umbrellas at the Zozimus Bar which was super unique and pretty.

WEDNESDAY

Our last morning we went to Queen of Tarts for breakfast. It was super delicious and we got the chocolate scones and apple crumble muffin, so yummy! We wanted to go to the Cliffs of Moher, but a day tour out there would have taken too long. So instead we went to Howth Head. It is a bout 30-45 minute bus ride from Dublin (Catch the 31 bus from Talbot Street to Howth Summit). We rode to the Summit and then hiked back down to the main town- on weekends they have a full market (on the weekdays only a couple shops are open). We hiked along the purple trail which was part of the Bog of Frogs trail and had lunch at Crabby Joe’s which had very good fish and chips. Its definitely worth a half day trip.

We went back in to the city and stopped at Dublin’s Castle. We didn’t want to wait for the guided tour (€8), so we opted for the self-guided tour, but kind of wish we did the guided tour. We didn’t get to see as much because it was a self-guided tour, but it was worth the €6 entrance fee.

If we could go back in time and redo this trip, we probably would have tried to do more stuff on Monday and then taken the day trip to Cliffs of Moher (or another day trip) on Tuesday. Then we would have done the Guinness tour on Wednesday.

We then went back to the hostel and waited around to catch the bus back to the airport. We thought our flight was at 9:30pm, but really it was at 7:30pm (we got confused with the military time). We got to the airport at 7:30pm and were super confused about why our flight wasn’t showing on the departure board. We ended up asking someone why it wasn’t showing, and he looked at us like we were crazy and said it had already departed twenty minutes ago. So we quickly looked up the next available flight, which was at 6:25am the next morning. We went back down to the RyanAir desk, after having to go through passport control again. We then tried going back through security, but we couldn’t go through until three hours before our flight. So we camped out at the 24hr McDonalds (where I’m currently writing this) until 3:25am when we could go through security.

Next stop (hopefully) is Paris.