After our usual late night flight the night before, we were up early Friday to explore Dublin. We walked past Christs church before getting a tour through Dublin Castle.
After a quick run back to the hostel for our raincoats, we walked through the main shopping area of Dublin, apparently busier than Oxford St in London and the Champs Elysees in Paris, although we were far from convinced.
More walking in the afternoon, through Trinity College and a few of the parks, past St Patrick's Cathedral, and out to the Guinness Storehouse, the site where Arthur Guinness set up his brewery 250 years ago. Its a self guided tour, which finishes with a free pint of guinness at the end, which I managed to force down.
We had heard the Dublin nightlife is pretty good, and we would probably agree with that after a late one on Friday night boogie-ing to some great live music. Saturday we were up early though, we had a 9.30am train to belfast to catch. Once in Belfast we basically jumped straight into a cab for one of the black cab tours, to hear a bit about the troubles in Belfast and see some the sights and murals.
After a quick walk through the main streets of Belfast, we jumped in our hire car and cruised to the northern tip of the Ireland island, to a little town called Portstewart. We stayed the night up there in a nice little hostel near the beach, and had a nice early night.
Next stop, the oldest licensed distillery in Ireland, Bushmills whiskey distillery:
After a quick run back to the hostel for our raincoats, we walked through the main shopping area of Dublin, apparently busier than Oxford St in London and the Champs Elysees in Paris, although we were far from convinced.More walking in the afternoon, through Trinity College and a few of the parks, past St Patrick's Cathedral, and out to the Guinness Storehouse, the site where Arthur Guinness set up his brewery 250 years ago. Its a self guided tour, which finishes with a free pint of guinness at the end, which I managed to force down.We had heard the Dublin nightlife is pretty good, and we would probably agree with that after a late one on Friday night boogie-ing to some great live music. Saturday we were up early though, we had a 9.30am train to belfast to catch. Once in Belfast we basically jumped straight into a cab for one of the black cab tours, to hear a bit about the troubles in Belfast and see some the sights and murals.After a quick walk through the main streets of Belfast, we jumped in our hire car and cruised to the northern tip of the Ireland island, to a little town called Portstewart. We stayed the night up there in a nice little hostel near the beach, and had a nice early night. Sunday we spent the day cruising around the coast from Portstewart back to Belfast. There are plenty of sights along this coast, starting with Dunluce Castle:
Next stop, the oldest licensed distillery in Ireland, Bushmills whiskey distillery:Then around to the Giant's causeway.
And last the rope bridge at Carrick-a-rede, originally set up to enable fisherman to get to the best spots to catch the migrating salmon. Now just a tourist attraction, and a fairly scary one at that!
After a bit of a tiki tour, we dropped our car back at the airport and flew home late sunday night from our whirlwind tour of Ireland.
1 comment:
Awwww Ireland :) We did basically the same things in Northern Ireland when we were there - Carrick-a-Rede, Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle and then an afternoon in Portstewart (but ours was spent curled up in the family's beach house as I was sick and had no energy for any more exploring!) Gorgeous place, we loved it up there. We didn't make it into the Republic - that's on the list for next time!
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