Dublin Trip Report

[phillyrunner]

Just landed today after a quick 4 day weekend in Dublin. Thought I would give you all a trip report. Many of the locals told us Ireland is very rainy in October, and we lucked out with 2 1/2 of our days being sunny and 1 1/2 being rainy. I truthfully wasn’t expecting sun at all so I was pleasantly surprised!



Friday


Landed after a red eye – Checked into our hotel (Westin – excellent location in the city center) and took a 2 hour nap. After that, we went to Trinity College (right across from our hotel), toured and checked out the Book of Kells, ate a late lunch/early dinner at Elephant and Castle (delicious). After that, we did a Dublin Mountain Pub Tour from 7 to midnight. We are so glad we did this tour. It was an absolute blast and a great way to spend our first night. Our tour guide picked us up (and 8 others) near out hotel in Dublin, and he drove us to three different pubs in the mountains near the city. The tour guide was so much fun and very entertaining, and it was great talking with the locals at pubs outside of the city.



Saturday


From our hotel, we walked to and toured Guinness Storehouse and Kilmainham Gaol. Guinness Storehouse was very interesting to tour and we learned how to pour a perfect pint and the tour included a pint of Guinness at the end. At the very top, there is a bar that has panoramic views of the city. Kilmainham Gaol (an old prison) was interesting to tour and we learned a lot about Irish history. Since we are slow and like to explore, we made some stops to check out churches on the way, which took up most of our day. By the time we got back, it was dinner-time, so we ate at Porter House, which also was good. We then went to River Bar, which was right near our hotel and had live music.



Sunday


We woke up a little late, and decided to take the train to Howth. Unfortunately, there was a random fire in between two of the train stations on the route to Howth so the trains weren’t running. The buses were crowded because the train was down, and we were unable to get on 2 buses to Howth so we gave up and wandered into a tourist office. We found a tour leaving in the afternoon, heading to Malahide and Howth. I’m glad we took this tour, although I would have much rather just explored Howth on our own. Howth was a very cute coastal town that had really great fish restaurants and beautiful views. I would highly recommend checking it out. Malahide has a castle, which we toured. I didn’t think the castle was that interesting, but I did enjoy wandering around the gardens. When we returned to Dublin, we went on the Literary Pub tour, which was interesting and informative, although we felt a little rushed at the pubs. We did some pub hopping on our own afterwards. 

Monday


Another late start (we enjoyed the pubs/live music so much each night that we just couldn’t wake up early in the mornings)! We went on a tour to the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough. We used Day Tours Unplugged, and our tour started at 1pm. We had a very small group which was nice. The views here were also beautiful. We got back to Dublin in the evening, and ate dinner at Rustic Stone (we both agreed that the food was good, not great). We did more of our own pub hopping for our last night after dinner in the Trinity Bar area. Although it was very touristy, we really enjoyed hearing the traditional Irish music while drinking Irish beers.


I am usually not a huge drinker or night owl, but there was something about Ireland and the whole pub experience that I just really enjoyed. Now we need to plan a trip in the future to the west coast of Ireland. It's a beautiful country!

[frlcb]

I was just in Dublin for 5 days at the beginning of October for a travel blogging conference and did almost all the same tours as you! I loved the Wicklow/Glendalough one, so pretty. I enjoyed Malahide but agree the castle is nothing special. Glad you liked it, I love Dublin!