Diddely de Potatoes
Trip Start
May 10, 2009
1
28
38
Trip End
Jul 02, 2009
Where I stayed
Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
Friday, June 5, 2009
The hostel that we were staying at, Avalon House, refunds your airport bus fare on arrival so caught the bus into the city – far out… it takes forever to get through Dublin traffic. All the cities in Europe have traffic problems in the centres as the streets were sized for horses and not three lanes of cars in both directions like Adelaide is. Dublin however is narrow lanes and roads all the way to the outskirts – when a bus stops, all the cars bank up behind it.
After lunch in Grafton Street, we went to Trinity College, where they hold the book of Kells; I’d never actually heard of it before, but it’s famous. Not famous enough for me to spend 10 euros to go see it though, make it 5 and I would’ve gone.
We then just wandered around through the Temple Bar district and the medieval district (the castle grounds and the churches), in the general direction of the Guinness Brewery. Originally I was planning to walk up O’Connell Street towards the Millennium Spire, but as the bus went past it earlier we realised that it’s really not that interesting a place to bother going.
The Guinness tour is sortof interesting, I’ve not done a brewery tour before, and it’s not strictly one as its more of a tourist site since they don’t actually brew beer there. It was the old storehouse building which is a historic site for being one of the first buildings in
Ireland to be built using skyscraper principles (apparently called Chicago architecture) and converted into a museum like display with the history and making of Guinness and Guinness related products (including the famous advertising). Right at the top is the “Gravity Bar” where you get your pint and there is a view out over Dublin… it’s over-rated, again for a tower view to be any good, you need to have a decent skyline or buildings to look at; Dublin has neither, but it’s still a nice place to have a beer.
A good place to have a beer though is the Brazen Head pub, we went there on the way back to the hostel for a drink; it’s the oldest pub in Dublin, only one since we weren’t going to eat there with their inflated prices. Prices in Dublin aren’t anywhere near as bad as I’d heard, but since Josh & Bron were here, the recession has really kicked in and I’ve been told prices have dropped quite a bit from where they were.
We were both rather tired so didn’t go out, although I did go out later on for an hour just to check out a couple of the pubs and to see what the Temple Bar district was like – when you get there, there is heaps of people out and there are quite decent bands busking in the streets. Also saw about 3 hens nights and one bucks night in the short time I was there, so it is the wild partying district that it’s known for, but I reckon the better places are along St Georges Street nearby at the Long Hall and the Market Square… not quite so many drunken yobbos!
