A trip through Ireland

In October 2015, we went to Ireland for a long weekend. The idea was for Becky to catch-up with some old friends from university in Dublin and to explore and see as much of the country as we could.

It was my first time there so I was pretty excited.

Arriving in Dublin

We flew into Dublin Airport and the first stop was to drop off our bags at the Sandymount hotel. Now lighter we took the DART back into town, it was time to see what Dublin had to offer.

A wander through Front Arch and around Trinity College, was followed by a trip up Grafton Street. As Bewley’s coffee shop was shut, we detoured onto Wicklow Street. These back streets are full of beautiful shops, little restaurants (Cornicopia is a delight) and old arcades. After a pretty good pint of Guinness, we crossed through to Temple Bar. Whenever you mention Dublin to a tourist ‘Temple Bar’ will probably be uttered in the words that follow. In general, it gets a bad rep – one half (the west) of the street is actually quite nice. After meeting friends for tapas for dinner, we made our way back to the hotel.

The next day we picked up a rental car from the airport (always cheaper than the city centre) and drove to a very nice place just north of the city called Skerries, where we had a wander along the coast and then some seafood.

After a blast of sea air, we slept well – looking forward to the next day, where the plan was to drive across the country to the County of Galway.

Driving to Galway and Back

So the next morning came and we left early in order to make the most of the daylight. After an extremely straight motorway to Oranmore, the roads turned very narrow, yet the speed limits remained the same (100 km/h).

There were also some additional driving hazards:

We had a quick stop in Kilcolgan, as Becky was being nosey and wanted to see the house where she grew up in. After a nice cup of tea with the new homeowner (Irish people are extremely friendly and curious), we went for grilled oysters, homemade soda bread and Guinness at Moran’s Oyster Cottage.

Leaving the County of Galway, even narrower roads led us through the rocks of the Burren to The Cliffs of Moher in the County of Clare. We had a small hike here for about 1 hour and took a bunch of pictures:

After the cliffs, we followed the coastline around to Lahinch. It was low tide and there wasn’t any surf, so it was a perfect excuse to take off the shoes, have a nice walk and lots of fun (including making our very own surf board):

It was already getting dark after our walk at the beach, so we wiped our feet, got back into the car and drove home.

Dublin Sightseeing Day

We had one last morning in Dublin for extra touristy stuff, including the Guinness Brewery, before it was time for us to go back to London.

One interesting thing that struck me – the Guinness tasted much better in one of the pubs we visited on our first day than it did in the brewery. Regardless, any Guinness in Dublin/Ireland is much better than the one you can find elsewhere.

So if you like Guinness, definitely go to Dublin and give it a try.

If you don’t like Guinness, still go, there’s plenty to do and definitely a worthwhile trip 🙂