Day 15 - Dublin Day 2

 We were a little tired after all of the city tours we have been doing so we tried to take it a bit easier today and kept it to 12,000 steps. We started out with a walk to St Stephen's Green, a park near our hotel.

From there we walked down Grafton St which is a pedestrian friendly shopping area with all of the high end stores. They had a Canada Goose Store which was strange as they really don't have severe winters here.

At the end of Grafton St is Trinity College, founded in 1592. I downloaded a walking tour app and we followed it around the campus. Lots of tour groups intermingled with the students made for a busy place.

From there we walked to the river and crossed the Ha' Penny Bridge on our way to the Temple Bar for a late lunch.

The Temple Bar is a famous tourist attraction and had live music during the day.

We left there and on the way up the street I noticed a fabulous whisky tasting bar. It was too early in the afternoon to get into that but we were able to browse the premises. Too bad today is our last day here.

250 Euros for a bottle of Gretzky!

We went to pick up a few souvenirs and chill out in our hotel before supper. We noticed it seemed to be getting fairly busy with all of the bars filling up in late afternoon.

When we went out for supper an hour later, you could hardly move on the streets around our place. I think the entire student population goes out for Thursday night drinks. Apparently it is quite OK to take over the streets for an impromptu party.

We went slightly outside of the central party zone to O' Neill's pub and had our supper and then returned to our hotel to get packed for our return flight tomorrow.

Day 14 - Dublin

 It was time to explore Dublin! We thought we would try another guided walking tour to get acquainted with the city core. The one we chose was the south side tour (the part of the city we are staying in) but it started on the north side of the River Liffey. 

Our neighbourhood near the hotel

On our way there we passed by the stature of Molly Malone who was commemorated in the Dublin anthem "Cockles and Mussels". Our taxi driver from yesterday said it was good lug to rub her breasts...

Our tour started on O' Connell St at "The Spire", a 120 metre high stainless steel pin-like monument that symbolizes,,,, nothing. 

At the foot of O' Connell St is a statue of O' Connell that if you look closely, you can see the bullet holes from the war of independence in 1916. 

We started our walking tour by walking back over the O' Connell Bridge and could see the Ha' Penny bridge just upstream.

Ha'Penny Bridge

Our tour leader was great at giving us a crash history course of Dublin and Ireland as he described the various buildings we passed by. Some of these will be revisited as time permits tomorrow. Significant places we passed by were Trinity College, Bank of Ireland, The Temple Bar neighbourhood, Christ Church Cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral and Dublin Castle.

The Temple Bar that is in The Temple Bar Neighbourhood 

Christ Church Cathedral

St Patrick's Cathedral

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

After the walking tour, we walked to the Guinness Storehouse for a tour and tasting. 

We could have had a ride with "Fluffy"

It was quite an interesting tour presentation unlike any other brewery tour I have been on. 

Barley

Hops

These are water jets that work like an ink jet printer!

Yeast

The pour

Sitting down to a Guinness tasted good after being on our feet all day.

Guinness is Good for You

It was now near the dinner hour so we headed back to the area around our Hotel which lots of pubs of which a few were recommended by the Hotel staff. We struck out at the first one we tried but managed to get a table at Sheehan's. 

Classic Corned Beef and Cabbage

The food was really good. We needed to recharge for our last day here tomorrow so we grabbed a bottle of wine at the local off premises and returned to our Hotel. It was amazing how busy it was at all of the venues on a Wednesday night.