Back to Dublin, Ireland

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I could hear the wind and rain pounding on our bedroom window throughout the night, but this morning when I woke up, it looked to have calmed down a bit. You know It’s been raining hard in Ireland when even the locals comment on how bad the weather is. When we left our B&B and started driving toward Dublin the sun was even starting to shine (!), so we were quite happy about that.

We took the N18 to Limerick and then the N7 to Dublin. The roads here are funny…in the states, when you switch from one “highway” to the next, its as simple as a turn or an off ramp. Here, you have to drive through anywhere from 3 to 10 roundabouts through the city center to get to the new road your trying to get to. If nothing else, it’s good practice for going through the roundabouts. I’ve actually started enjoying driving through them.

We got to Dublin at about 12:30pm and made our way through the city center traffic (which seems to be a constant, everyday occurrence) to the Thrifty Rental Car agency. We found it without any trouble, dropped off our rental car, and walked around the block to our hotel (Trinity Capital on Pearse St.). Our room wasn’t ready so we dropped off our luggage and walked over to the Dublin Castle to try our luck a second time (since it was closed unexpectedly on Tuesday when we tried to go). We got there early (it’s supposed to open at 2pm on Sundays) so we wandered around the gift shop first. To our dismay, we found out shortly after that the castle was closed AGAIN. I don’t know who was there this time but there was a limo and a bunch of cars inside and I’m guessing that this is a regular occurrence that dignitaries and/or politicians shut the castle down for meetings and such. I guess we just weren’t meant to see the inside!

Since we couldn’t go to the castle, we walked over to Aston Quay and caught the 79 bus to Kilmainham Gaol instead. This ended up being a better choice anyway because the tour of the jail is really interesting (and also free if you have the Irish Heritage Card). The jail, which has been closed since the early 1900’s, has been carefully restored and tells the story of the many heroes of Irish nationalism who lived and died as prisoners there.

After touring the jail we caught the 78A bus back to Aston Quay and then walked across O’Connell Bridge to O’Connell Street. There are a ton of shops to wander around, not only on O’Connell St. but on the side streets as well. We walked around and shopped for a bit and then walked back across the street to Temple Bar to find a place to eat. There was a match on so most of the pubs were full. We ended up at a place called The Alamo, a Tex-Mex style restaurant. I had a vegetable enchilada with a pint of Guinness. A bit of s atrange combination, but I had to have Guinness our last night in Ireland!

After dinner we walked around to browse the shops and then made our way back to the hotel. Tomorrow we take the ferry to Holyhead and then the train to Chester, passing through the top of Wales along the way.

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Photos

Glen Cove B&B
Clarecastle, Ireland