It’s time to travel once again 🙂 This time we’re going to Ireland (Dublin and around) to check if it’s true that Irish weather could gather the whole four seasons in a day. Let me save your time wondering – yes, it can and it’s on and on – four seasons in a single day every day 🙂
Having in mind that, I have just checked for the best price for our flights and didn’t actually consider weather forecast. I was not disappointed, as mentioned above, weather was exactly what we’re expecting – rainy, shiny, windy, coldly, warmly and so on. Whenever you’re wondering if you should take this jacket in mid May in you luggage – yes, you should. If you should take spare pair of shoes – yes, you should. If you should take couple of light T-shirts – yes, you should. Basically you should pack everything, except the swimwear 🙂
We have booked small flat through airbnb once again – everything was perfectly fine. Just to mention that hotel prices in Dublin are almost insane, as in Copenhagen in Denmark. Otherwise, prices in Dublin are pretty decent, not really expensive and much cheaper than I expected. Which was of course, a good surprise for us. Souvenirs and other stuffs not so much, but overall pricing in Ireland is pretty fine.
Dublin itself is not really big city, especially compared with other European capitals. There are numerous of old buildings, small neighbors of small houses with even smaller backyards, pretty much idyllic. Most of the time we were surrounded by historical Gothic churches, aristocratic houses and places and we felt that Irish history is still alive. Most of Irish people are speaking English, but they are actually having 2 national languages – English and Gaelic. Old Gaelic is everywhere, starting with every sign and table and chart you may see, to the restaurants’ menus and small stuffs you may buy from the stores. Their flags and national symbols are also everywhere, which is actually really nice. Irish people are extremely nice and polite, or at least every person we met was really kind and supportive. We saw how they interact between themselves, with kindness, empathy and goodness. They were always greeting, always trying to make you smile and to feel comfortable. Whenever someone touches you or something (in the public transport for example) – they are always saying ‘apologies’ or ‘sorry’ but not because of fake decency, but because they actually are meaning it. It was delightful for me to get to know these nice people and walk through their gorgeous old cities.
We have spent 5 days in Ireland, 4 in Dublin and 1 we have traveled to Kilkenny – small city an hour and a half bus trip from Dublin. It was lovely to walk around through this cozy and eclectic village, full with nice places, craft shops, art galleries and nice cafes. We were thinking if we should go to Cliffs of Moher, but 6 hours trip was not exactly what we wanted during our stay there. We though that it would be better just walk around Dublin and Kilkenny and be like Irish guys – drink beer, eat and live our life in the rain.
What you should definitely see in Dublin: Trinity College (of course), Temple Bar (of course!), Dublin Castle, St. Patrick Cathedral, Malahide Castle, St. Stevens Garden, National Museums /Gallery, Archaeology, Natural History/, Christ Church, Spire of Dublin, etc. If you’re interested in how alcohol is made, you can visit Guinness beer Storehouse or Jameson Distillery. There are also couple of more parks, botanical garden or zoo that you could check. One of my favorite walks through the city is close to river Liffey – we saw a lot of nice bridges, together with famous Ha’penny bridge of course.
There are plenty of other places you could visit as well. Public transport is really good and not really expensive so you could go everywhere. Especially if you’re not too lazy like us 🙂
I strongly recommend you to visit this specious place and to meet these nice guys! And it is a must in case you love beer like us! See you there next time 🙂