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Published: March 31st 2011
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Dublin is amazing! A 1000 year old city and well just wonderful. We arrived early in the morning at Dun Laogahaire airport and out drive Harry Collins was waiting for us just as expected. He was fantastic gave us some great travel tips and even places to go. Harry was just a great way to start our stay in Dublin. We arrived at the Monte Clare hotel in Merrion Park, it is a rather old hotel, but nice. We arrived around 8 am so we could not have a room just yet. So we went for a bite to eat at a shop around the corner.
The first thing we did in Dublin was walk directly across the street to see the stature of Oscar Wilde. Another thing we did not realize was that Dublin doesn't really "open" until around 9:30 or 10...so, we were wandering around in some drizzle seeing the sights for a while. Our hotel is in a great location though and you can really just walk throughout the city without any issue. We walked around Trinity College, Dublin Castle which we all closed, but still beautiful. We ended up at Christ Church Cathedral which is just
gorgeous. The outside is stunning, we were there as they opened and were able to take it all in. We were there just in time for the 10 am prayer service and of course the church bells. We went down to the catacombs, which have by far the creepiest bathroom I have ever been in. And as luck would have it Zoe lost a shoe and so I have to walk all through the cathedral and the catacombs looking and of course it was in afore mentioned exceedingly creepy bathroom. From there we chose the option to get the tickets for Dublinia and Christ Church which they combine for 11 euros. Dublinia was awesome. We had heard that they just reopened after some renovations and that it was a neat way to get the history of the vikings in Dublin. It was so much fun, lots of school kids were there for field trips, but it wasn't crowded and overall was a blast. We then hiked to the top of St. Michaels Tower which is 95 steps to get a 360 degree view of the city. It was worth the hike.
We then went to the Davy Byrnes Pub
Christ Church Cathedral
Beautiful, right after the rain stopped which I had read about as being a great pub, good food, great beer (of course) and load of literary figures used to have a pint there, so I was really excited to go there and do the same. However, no kids under 7 allowed! So disappointed. Luckily just around the corner is the Sheridans Cheese Monger - which has all of the local cheeses and you can sample any you choose. This almost made up for the no toddlers policy at Byrnes.
This is where lunch got a little off, since I had only one place in mind and we were starving and getting a little tired from the long red eye (did I mention Zoe did not sleep for more than 1.30 hours the entire 11 hours of flying?). So we just looked around for the nearest pub with a Guinness sign...which was a mistake, we ended up at a pub called Bruxelles and it was just gross. It was bad pub food at best.
After lunch we decided to go back to the hotel and take a nap, Zoe fell asleep on the hop on hop off bus and we were close behind. When we got
up we realized that the museums were all now closed so we decided to walk around and see the sights. We went to O'Connell Street, General Post Office, River Liffey, Ha' Penny Bridge. After about 6:30 (or when it gets dark) O'Connell Street really changes, it is almost instantly, that rough looking people come out of the word work and are just sitting around doing their own thing, but not a place we wanted to spend a lot of time. (it felt perfectly safe, just unsavory). Lots of Garda walking around keeping everyone in order. At about 9 we decided we should probably eat something, however 9 is also the time where kids aren't really allowed in the pubs, so we ended up back at the Davenport hotel, sister hotel to the Mont Clare.
I don't think I have yet to mention that our room is HUGE, it's a suite and really nice with Zoe, there is plenty of room for her to run around. It also happens to be called the "Oscar Wilde Suite" - which I throughly enjoy.
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