Europe Part 1: Dublin

Note: I wrote the text for these blogs as we went, hoping to post while traveling, but couldn't get them to upload on my iPad, so I'll be posting all of them in the next couple of days.

Day 1-June 28. After getting delayed 4 hours in Chicago and then sitting on the tarmac in Dublin for an hour before they had a gate for us, we finally arrived in Dublin. The original schedule was for about 8am, but after customs we finally left the airport at about 2pm. Our hotel is in the middle of Temple Bar, a great location for seeing things but we were soon to find out not a great location for sleeping. We headed straight out for a walk downtown to see what we could. We picked up our Dublin passes and went to Christ Church Cathedral. The Cathedral was beautiful and you could even go down into the crypt. Then, we visited a Wax Museum (cheesy) and had dinner at a traditional Irish pub. I had a Guinness Beef Stew. Very traditional, but not very good in my opinion. Mike and Jack had fish and chips, which they liked except for the “mushy peas.” Jack and I were both falling asleep at the table, despite it only being about 6pm, as we hadn’t slept much on the plane overnight. We headed back to the hotel to get to bed. Unfortunately our room was right above a night club. The first night, a Thursday, I thought was loud, but I was soon to find out that Friday and Saturday would not only be louder, but go on until 2am or later, fueled by World Cup revelry as well as exuberant vacationers. We were in a beautiful hotel, great location, and all exhausted.

Day 2-June 29. We used our Hop on hop off passes today to go all over the city. We visited Dublin Castle, a fancy state building, and had an ice tea at Queen of Tarts, a little shops recommended by one of Mikes co-workers.

We went to Teelings Distillery for a tour, which was interesting and ended with a nice summer cocktail which even I liked. We also visited Guinness storerooms, where Mike had a beer and we all enjoyed some lunch.

We visited Saint Patrick's cathedral, where Jonathan Swift is buried. It was a beautiful cathedral, with lots of intricate details, and a chore all carved out of dark wood.

Then, we went to Glasnevin, an old cemetery with some amazing headstones and a small museum. I know it sounds weird to visit a cemetery, but this one was pretty amazing. 

We rounded off the afternoon with walks through the Natural History Museum, an old fashioned, very dated place of animal specimens, and the National gallery to see some old art. We ended the evening with dinner at a place called Elephant and Castle, for a simple dinner of crab cakes and Chicken wings.

Day 3-June 30. We took a tour out of Dublin today to the town of Kilkenny, where we toured another castle, and visited a third Cathedral, this one small but again very beautiful.

We then drove through the Wicklow mountains to the medieval ruins at Glendalough. This site has some old ruins from a cathedral that didn't survive, a medieval town, and cemetery as well as a couple of lakes, which give the location its name (loch is lake). We hiked only to the first or lower lake, a very pretty place, and the explored the ruins.

 After a quick late lunch we headed back on the bus and made a last stop at a sheep farm to see some border collies herding the sheep. Jack also got to hold a lamb; it was an older one and he found it quite heavy. :). After a ride back to Dublin, we went to a restaurant called Boxty, again for traditional Irish fare. I had a casserole with lamb and barley, served with soda bread and Mike had a potato pancake-like thing with beef. Again, good enough but I didn’t like it much. I have not become a fan of Irish food.

Tomorrow, we head to the UK.