Poulnabrone and at last, to Dublin

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Two more nights left on the itinerary, both in Dublin. First we had to get there. The Burren stood between us and the big city which was planned as it is yet another of those things one is supposed to see when you're in the neighborhood of Ireland.

Poulnabrone is an ancient dolmen, a portal tomb dating back as far as 4200bc. Hey look, something older than me! (always nice to locate these rare landmarks) Stonehenge, which is larger, dates back only to 2400-3000bc (still older than me, by the way). Seems that in those extra 1000 years someone figured out how to lift way bigger rocks. But still, Poulnabrone is cool, sitting out on the barren Burren sandstone and very picturesque when you catch it in beautiful early light between howling, curse-inducing Irish squalls.

We wound our way through the Irish countryside and found after a while that the GPS was trying to take us somewhere that wasn't Dublin. Think she was pissed that we hadn't kissed the Blarney Stone or something. Really not sure what THAT was all about but we overruled the sury recalculating wench and used an old-fashioned paper map to find the highway. The Blarney Stone likely would require a serious amount of sanitizing before I got anywhere near it anyway. I bet that thing is older than me too.

Something odd happened after we left Poulnabrone and headed east. The clouds started to disappear and some strange bright light from the sky started assaulting us from all sides. It was warm and made us happy. Turns out the right half of the island wasn't suffering through the same miserable weather that the left half was that day. Nice to be heading in the right direction!

We found Croke Park without incident and settled in to our very nice hotel which was across the street from the big hurling/Gaelic football 84,000-person stadium. Jeff quickly figured out that there was a tour that could be had in the big stadium so we penciled that in for the following day. Hurling had already captured our imagination...time to figure out how the big boys played it.

We walked downtown and let me tell you - in all of my travels I have never encountered a city as mellow and easy as Dublin. I guess when you hold up any city against Bangkok or Kathmandu, it's going to seem a bit tame. Still decked out in its Christmas splendor and pedestrian streets still buzzing with post-holiday induced spendathoning, it reminded me oddly of Rhonda in Spain, a decidedly smaller place but which we caught at about the same time and in the same frenzied consumer crush.

I found myself really liking Dublin and I think it's because I typically brace myself for a big city and Dublin was the most relaxed city I've ever set foot in. It allows you to let your guard down. And hey, there was a Gardiner Street, the sign that we found living happily under a giant Guinness sign. Tra la la...

We headed down to look for a restaurant that a girl at the hotel had recommended but found it to be closed and so wandered into the Church, an old magnificent church that now slings beer and food in a heavenly setting.

Where else would one find O'Hara's stout on tap than in a Church? Pure perfection. And maybe a little irony but let's go with it. Who even knew that O'Hara's stout existed? This part of the trip might have just been some strange realistic dream; it's hard to tell sometimes, especially when you're almost as old as Stonehenge.

We headed back to the hotel and watched some stupid movie with Leonardo de Caprio and whats-her-name from Titanic and we decided it was the horrible depressing aftermath of what would have happened had the ship actually made it to New York and they shacked up together. I'll never get those two hours back.

Big day tomorrow. Going to find out what the hell this hurling is all about and check out what else lives in downtown Dublin.

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Photos

they're always after me lucky charms
had to say it once, didn't i?

Comments

[Jeanne]

Your Trip To Ireland
You have some wonderful pictures and it sounds as though you had a grand time! Good for you! I would love to read more about your trip. I hope you will tell us more about your time in "the old country."

[elJardineros]

:)
thank you Jeanne - we had a great time in spite of illness and horrid weather! it wasn't enough time; is it ever? - only 7 days but a nice sample platter of how beautiful Ireland must be in the summer (as it was lovely in the winter. Only one more blog for this trip to post - already looking forward to the next adventure. :)