June 27, 2013 through
July 2, 2013 Dublin, Ireland
Apologies to our Irish Friends but Dublin Was Our Least
Favorite City
We were in Dublin, Ireland, from July 27, 2013 until we flew
back to the states on July 2. We were sadly disappointed in what we thought
would be the fair city of Dublin. On
arrival in Edinburgh, we went wow! We
looked for the wow factor in Dublin, and it’s just another city. We’ve took the hop-on, hop-off tour through
the town; went to the Guinness experience, toured the jail, and saw Riverdance. They were great, but Dublin overall is not on
the level of other European cities. The
Temple bar area was fun, but it sure kept us up all night. We went during the
day for lunch at The Temple Bar which
offered 99 sandwiches and great Irish music.
Our Dublin hotel was the poorest of the 16 hotels/apartments
we’ve stayed at. The room was nice, but
in order to get any ventilation, all the windows had to be opened which meant
that all night long we heard sea gulls and bar noise. Not conducive to sleeping well. Breakfast has been the most meager of any
we’ve had. Even the one-lady owner hotel
in Bruges produced more of a variety of food.
It was interesting to ask one of the ladies if she was related to
another lady in the breakfast room who looked remarkably like her, and she told
us that they were sisters and her Mom had had 22 children.
We saved all our shopping for Dublin and except for great
Guinness souvenirs, we didn’t find much worth
buying. We admit to having been at the
end of our stamina and ready to come home, but we were pretty tired in
Edinburgh, and we still loved it. We
took a tour out to the Irish countryside – to the coast and to Powerscourt
Gardens. They were very pretty, but the
coast reminded us of California and the gardens reminded us of the Mirabelle
Gardens in Salzburg, so we didn’t find anything unique about either of
them. I think that if we had gone to
Ireland first, we would have marveled at how wonderful everything was, but
since it was our last stop, it didn’t impress us at all. And yet we were so impressed by Edinburgh and
London even though I was very sick in London.
Two items of note that we loved: Europe’s squares and shopping streets are
full of living statues. I have already
posted a couple of them from Barcelona.
But the best one we have ever seen was one with six guys and a dog on
Grafton Street in Dublin. In addition to
that, there are street musicians everywhere in Europe, but this teenage
orchestra, playing traditional Irish instruments really impressed us.
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| Enjoying Guinness at the Gravity Bar on the top of Guinness Storehouse Experience |
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| The Best Living Statue in All of our European Experience |
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| Actual Statue of the Famous Molly Malone - in Dublin, one of her nicknames is the Tart with the Cart |
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| Powerscourt Gardens Outside of Dublin |
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| Kilmainhaim Gaol - Executions of Rebellion Leaders turned an unsympathetic population into supporters of the Irish Revolution. |
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| The Temple Bar in Temple Bar - home of 99 sandwiches |
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| Teen Orchestra on Grafton Street in Dublin - Note traditional Irish instruments |
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