Arrival in Dublin

Our flight to Paris had a stopover in Dublin, so we planned on spending a couple of days in Ireland, We had never been there before, and this was a great opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

The flight from Boston to Dublin was 6 hours and the time difference was 5 hours so we arrived at 12:30 our time, 5:30 am their time. Luckily we were able to get an early, very early, checkin at the  Trinity Capital Hotel. This is a very nice  hotel just outside the walls of Trinity College and not far from the action of the Temple Bar area.

Our friends, Jacques and Claire, were arriving from Paris around noon, so we took a quick power nap then went out to find some coffee. After their arrival, we made our way across the Liffey River which separates north and south Dublin. We walked over the O'Connell Bridge which is named after Daniel O'Connell.





He was known as the Liberator for his work to Emancipate the Catholics in the 1700's. It is a bit of an eye-opener to see the names of many of the streets named after significant characters in Irish history that we, (at least I), have no awareness of. We'll try to remedy that a bit for ourselves over the next few days. Here is the statue at the start of O'Connell St. Many of the streets and locations are named after the famous Irish writers and poets too.

After lunch at the Kylemore, a buffet style restaurant, we walked down Henry St and crossed back over the Liffey by way of The Ha'Penny Bridge into the Temple Bar area. We heard some Irish music coming from The Dubliner pub. We went in but it was too crowded so we settled for a pint of Guinness at Oliver St. John Gogarty's Pub. Good beer and good Irish music. I'm sure many of the readers have been there. It is a pretty well known pub in the touristy Temple Bar area, but we are tourists, aren't we. It has live music all the time and multiple floors to spread out in.

For dinner we went to O'Neils pub near Suffolk St opposite the entrance to Trinity College. It is recommended as one of the few "carveries" left. You stand in a buffet line to order your cut of meat, then pile on the spuds, veggies, gravy, etc. We weren't sure how it all worked and neither did the young girls in front of us. But we soldiered on. You could also get fish and chips and beef stew which we opted for.

We fought the wind and the cold to make it back to the hotel. It even snowed a bit while we were out during the afternoon. We may get blown off the Cliffs of Moher tomorrow.