Dublin Day Five - Howth

Day Five in Dublin - Our last day. 

Earlier in the year Sean and Ashley spent some time in Dublin on a work related trip. They went to Howth and recommended that we check it out too. We talked with our Monograms host Damien and he gave us suggestions on how to get there. We waited for a good day to travel to the coast which turned out to be Saturday August 31, 2019.

We took the local rail train from the stop outside our hotel over to the Busarus LUAS stop and then walked a block to the Connolly Station of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit Line where we boarded a train to Howth.

Howth is a fishing village on a peninsula on Dublin Bay just northeast of Dublin. It is a popular attraction for tourists and has a number of good seafood restaurants in the village along with the fishing piers and quays.

It was a very pleasant train ride up to the peninsula but it was very cold and windy but very sunny and beautiful in the village. We spent a lot of time started around the village and especially along the coast which was also very beautiful. We wandered around the village throughout the morning and walked out to the piers where the fishing boats were docked. It was strange to be cold and to see tropical plants and palm trees blowing in the wind. We spent a couple of hours roaming around the village and the coastline with spectacular views of the North Sea. We saw lots of fishing boats, rocky islands and cliffs with homes and the lighthouse. Then we went to get some lunch. There were lots of seafood restaurants throughout the village along with several gift shops.

We went to The Bloody Stream Pub which was located right there at the railway station. We had fish and chips for lunch. I had a Galway Hooker Pale Ale on tap from Galway Hooker Brewery. This was the place Sean suggested and he was right. We had a wonderful time there for lunch and it was a very nice place with a covered porch, stone fireplace, and a regular bar.

We could tell that the Bloody Steam Pub was a happening place and it looked like there was lots going on at night. Apparently it is a very popular place for the locals in addition to the tourists.

While we were in the village of Howth two people came up to us to ask for directions. OK, then it was time to head back on the train to Dublin after a wondefull morning and afternoon on the windy North Sea coast.

We got back to the hotel and took a nap.

Stack A Restaurant and The Vault

Saturday night of our last day in Dublin.

We took a nap at the hotel after a long windy morning and afternoon in the village of Howth along the coast of the North Sea. We took the tram from the hotel to the George's Dock station and went over to the Stack A Restaurant in the Vault under the Urban Brewery. We had a very nice dinner of Irish style tapas.

While we were finishing up dinner lo and behold Eileen and Dan show up standing next to our table. Eileen tracked us down via a Facebook post I had made about having dinner in this restaurant and she showed up. Apparently they had moved to a different airbnb nearby.

Then we all went upstairs and hung out at the brewery for an hour or so. I had a Barrel Aged Sour by Urban Brewery and then an Elderflower Saison by Urban Brewery. Becky had a couple of pilsners.

Eileen and Dan were telling us about their plans for traveling around Ireland. The others in their group had scattered to different places with different travel plans. Then they told us the scary story of Dan losing his passport the previous night at the Temple Bar. He had it in his back pocket and then it was gone. We were shocked. Now they had to go to the US embassy and apply for a new replacement passport and they had to stay in Ireland until he received it. Eileen had been talking about maybe meeting us in Scotland after they had seen more of Ireland but that was off the table. It would take a while to get the passport and they couldn't leave the country.

We were also surprised about the looseness of Eileen's travel plans. They were making everything up as they went along. That was so different from our meticulous online planning and doing our hotels and travel through Monograms. I guess there might me something to be said about the advantage of some flexibility but not for overseas travel for us.

We had a very busy day and were exhausted. We were going to the airport in the morning and heading off to London so we said our goodbyes, got on the tram and went back to the hotel to get some sleep.

The hotel staff had been working on getting ready for a party with Bono to celebrate an Irish football game that was being played on Sunday. We were glad to be missing that scene.

Dublin Day Four - The Book of Kells

On our fourth day in Dublin we had our usual wonderful traditional breakfast at the hotel and then we took the tram over to Trinity College to go check out the Book of Kells and of course the Library. We had vouchers for the Book of Kells and after waiting in a line for a while we got to see it or at least a few pages from it. The display was an interesting exhibit but the object itself, the book, was a little underwhelming and a lot of what was going on there was very touristy.

The Trinity College Library was spectacular and well worth the trip. It was also fascinating to see the Harry Potter references. It felt like a movie set but of course it was all real, totally unique, incredibly beautiful and very strange. We could have spent a lot of time in that library.

 

The Dublin Castle and Chester Beatty Library

On our day four in Dublin Damien, our Monograms host, highly recommended that we sign up for a guided tour of the Dublin Castle which we did and we were very glad  we did because it was incredibly interesting and filled with fascinating facts that we would never have known about. The guided tour was also the only way to get down to the lower levels of the castle to see the black pool from which Dublin got it's name. Dublin Castle was originally a fortress that defended the town along the River Liffey.

Until 1922 Dublin Castle was the seat of British power in Ireland and is still a major Irish government complex, a conference center and a tourist attraction with significant historical importance. We saw the living spaces of the British viceroys of Ireland which were amazing to see. We had a nice lunch at the complex.

While we were waiting for our tour of the Dublin Castle we killed some time across the street at the Chester Beatty Library which contains an amazing Manuscript Exhibit. This collection included books and manuscripts from every period and place imaginable from all over the world. I especially liked the variety of ancient manuscripts.

Dublin Day Four - Christ Church Cathedral

We continued our day after touring the Dublin Castle and then walked over to the Christ Church Cathedral which is weirdly known for it's mummified rat and cat. The church was founded in the 11th century by a Viking king. It's been rebuilt and renovated many times over the centuries. The church is located in the heart of  medieval Dublin. We enjoyed our visit to this church and especially liked going down to the crypt.

We walked around the church and then spent some time down in the crypt. It might have been the best part of the church grounds. Very interesting.

Toscana Restaurant

We had a very busy day four in Dublin walking around Trinity College, Dublin Castle and Christ Church Cathedral and we needed to spend a little time back at our hotel. We were so happy that we had such quick and easy access to the rail line directly to our hotel. So after a quick nap and some well needed rest we were ready to head out again for dinner. Eileen also contacted us about getting together some time in the evening.

We took the tram back over to the Temple Bar area and walked over to Dame Street. I had done some restaurant research and suggested we try a nearby Italian restaurant. We found Toscana Restaurant right on Dame Street.

Toscana was probably the best Italian restaurant we've been to outside of Italy. It was a spectacular meal and the Italian guys taking care of us were wonderfully entertaining. We had a great time.

After our wonderful Italian dinner in the heart of Dublin we went out and walked the streets of Temple Bar.

Temple Bar

We ended our Dublin Day Four hanging out in Temple Bar section of town.  We walked the crowded streets and found our way to the Temple Bar Pub. There are many pubs in the Temple Bar area and we had been to a few but we wanted to check out the actual Temple Bar Pub at least for one beer.

It is one of the major tourist attractions in Dublin and was incredibly crowded as we made our way through the door on this

Friday night at the end of August. We wandered through the pub looking for a place to have a drink and maybe sit. We made our way to one particular corner near the end of the bar when a young couple offered us their seats at the bar. They said they were leaving shortly and we thanked them very much. However, they did stay and have another drink and had I known I would have bought it for them. We sat at the bar in very prime seats that let us catch the scene which included live music. Of course I had a Guinness Stout Draft. 

After a while we moved to another part of this very large pub to see what else was going on and we were able to get a standing spot at a high table and had another beer. This time I had a Beamish Irish Stout. After awhile we realized Eileen had texted us that they were at the Bison Pub along the river. We left the Temple Bar and made our way to the Bison which was about two blocks away. Unfortunately we couldn't find them there on either of the floors. Later we would find out that they left the Bison and went over to the Temple Bar looking for us. I'm surprised we didn't see each other as we passed on the streets of Dublin.

We decided to call it a night as it had been a very busy day. We headed back to the rail station to catch a tram back to our hotel. A man asked us for directions.

Dublin Day Three - On Tour

Day Three in Dublin.

We had another wonderful breakfast at the hotel and afterward met with Damien our host representative from Monograms. We were the only people on Monogram trips that day so we were the only two people with Damien in his little tour bus. We took a tour of the city with Damien and he was incredibly informative and entertaining. We had a great time and he drove us all over the city of Dublin and especially all around the old city where he showed us the best places to learn more about Irish history. He was very personable and really did know his city.

He gave us lots of tips as to what to see on our own and highly recommended taking the guided tour of Dublin Castle. He had an interesting story about the "black pool" which was where the Poddle Stream met the River Liffey and the name of Dublin comes from the Gaelic words for black pool... dubh linn.

Our tripped was booked with Monogram Tours through AAA and we get a tour host in each city who gives us a tour of the city and then is available at the hotel for questions. Damien was a wonderful tour host.

He dropped us off at the Guinness Storehouse where we had tickets for a noon tour.

The Guinness Storehouse

Day Three in Dublin Continues... 

Damien, our Monograms tour host, dropped us off at the Guinness Storehouse after our morning tour around the city of Dublin on day three. We had purchased our Guinness tour tickets online for noon. 

We had a fascinating tour of the St. Jame's Gate Brewery at the Guinness Storehouse which sometimes felt like being in an enormous commercial but a really interesting one. The tour took us through seven floors of beer making and the history of beer starting with the ingredients on the first floor and ending at a glass enclosed pub on the top floor.

One floor was dedicated to Guinness advertising over the years. There was an exhibit on the making of barrels that I found very interesting. There was a restaurant on the fifth floor that specialized in Irish cuisine using Guinness in the cooking and as an accompaniment to the food. We had a quick snack and headed up to the rooftop.

The Gravity Bar on the roof had spectacular views of Dublin from all sides. We hung out there for admiring the views while I drank Guinness Stout and Becky had a Guinness Lager. It was amazing to see all the large cranes across the skyline of Dublin.

We left in the early afternoon and started walking through the working class Liberties neighborhood on our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Dublin Neighborhood Walk & St Patrick's

Day three in Dublin continued with a walk from the Guinness Storehouse through the Liberties neighborhood and then the Coombe on our way to St Patrick's Cathedral. Walking through that area you could get a sense of how the working people from the brewery lived in their tight row houses and tiny streets. Suddenly we came to an open boulevard with large parks and churches in the

distance. We were walking toward St. Patrick's Cathedral which was our next destination. We like going to old churches while exploring cities in Europe because of their culture and art. This cathedral certainly did not disappoint. It was a very interesting place and spectacular to look at. Amazingly it was founded in 1191 and is designated as the national cathedral for all of Ireland. There is certainly a lot of history in that building especially because of all of the religious strife in the country caused by the British invasions of Ireland over the centuries.

We left the cathedral and as we were heading toward St. Stephen's Green we came across Marsh's Library which turned out to be the first public library in Ireland founded and opened to the public in 1707. Very cool.  We wandered around there for a bit and perused it's collection of over 25,000 books from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. The library still has it's originals fittings, shelves and seating. There was an exhibit of the books used by Bram Stoker while writing Dracula, Very interesting.

I follow Marsh's Library on Instagram and every day they post an image of a document from their collection.

We walked around St. Stephen's Green for a while but we were getting very tired. It was a long day. We headed back to the rail station but stopped at Insomnia Coffee Shop along the way for some coffee, tea and goodies. We got on the tram at Jervis Station and headed back to the hotel for a much deserved nap.

Sushi in Dublin

Our day three in Dublin was a long one but after our nap at the hotel it was time to go and get some food. I grew up in an Irish family in an Irish neighborhood alongside of a lot of Italians and black people but people always talked about going to Ireland and at the same time complained about the food there. For a long time Ireland was not known for good food except for some seafood along the coast. Things changed in recent decades as Dublin became more of an international city undergoing tremendous growth. The restaurant industry grew too and now Dublin is known for it's fine dining and good restaurants at every level.

When we were researching Dublin we had selected many restaurants as possible stops during our five days in the city. I had my Google maps marked with dozens of possibilities located near museums and sites where we had planned to visit. 

There was one restaurant that we walked or rode the tram past several times and it looked interesting. This was the J2 Sushi Grill on the North Quay Wall on the River Liffey a few blocks from our hotel. It sat there on the waterfront along with several other interesting restaurants but this was a Japanese sushi place and it looked good. We went there for dinner.

We loved it and the Japanese people working at the restaurant were wonderful and very friendly. We had great sushi and couldn't believe we were in Dublin Ireland enjoying this outstanding food overlooking the river and the city. We sat there and watched the sunset. I had an Asahi Super Dry Japanese Rice Lager from Asahi Brewery.

On the way back to the hotel from the restaurant we walked by this interesting lit up building which was part of the Dublin Convention Center right there on the riverfront.

We had an exhausting day and when we got back to the hotel we crashed and slept very well. We were looking forward to our fourth day in Dublin.

Dublin Day Two - Museums

We had a nice breakfast at our hotel that included lots of meats and Irish pudding. It was something different. We will still wearing the same clothes from the trip because our bags had not arrived yet but they told us they were now in London. 

We took the LUAS light rail train from The Point station outside our hotel to the Abbey Street station using our Leap Card which apparently we did not use properly.  First we walked around the O'Connell Street area which was kind of seedy and a little underwhelming. It was an area undergoing renovation and transformation. One of the things we realized was that as Great Britain has been leaving the European Union many international companies have been moving their European headquarters to Dublin including a lot of tech companies. You could see all the construction going on and the young people from around the world living in these areas under development.

We eventually walked across the O'Connell bridge and into the Temple Bar neighborhood where we explored around there for a while. We walked further into the neighborhood and then through the campus of Trinity College to the museum area. We went into the National Gallery of Art where we saw some important pieces of art that Becky was excited about.

After the art museum we went to the National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Archaeology. Both of those museums had fascinating collections of old and dusty objects and displays of curiosities. There were many ancient objects of Ireland including Paleolithic relics along with Bronze Age and many gold works and art from the Viking era. There were many interesting objects that had been buried in bogs for centuries. There were very well put together and displayed collections in both of those museums.

We also briefly stepped into the National Library of Ireland to check it out. There was a lot to see in that building but we were very tired at that point. We walked back up to the LUAS rail line and tool the train back to our hotel area. There was a pizza place down the street from the hotel where we stopped for some late lunch. Ruby's Pizza & Grill Point Square. It was OK, not great but we were tired and hungry and it was right next to the hotel. 

We went back to the hotel and still no bags. I called the airlines and while I was on the phone talking with a rep the bags were delivered to our room. Such a relief.

Our friend Eileen contacted us and said she just arrived in Dublin and was staying at an airbnb down in the Temple Bar area. She wanted to meet us. We knew she was planning to be in Ireland at some time near when we would be there so the message wasn't a complete surprise but still exciting.

The hotel wanted to clean our room so we went down to the lobby and had some coffee and tea. Then back upstairs to a clean room. We slept for a while, showered and then we were able to change into some clean clothes. Nice.