Luck o' the Irish!

A traveling fool, I tell ya!  We just so happened to have two, three day weekends in a row and there is no use in letting one go to waste.  So the next weekend after Capri, Kika and I, with husbands in tow this time, packed up again and headed up to Dublin, Ireland.  We arrived Saturday morning and bought a 3 day pass for the "Hop On, Hop Off" bus to tour the city of Dublin.  We used this same company in London and found it is quite a good way to see the city if you don't have a set itinerary.  And as an added bonus there is live commentary which is usually quite comical sometimes more entertaining than the scenery itself.  Aside from one driver who was so dull and boring, we decided he was called in as a last resort, the rest did an excellent job!

We hit all the main tourist attractions, the Christchurch Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Dublin Castle (though we didn't go in), the Kilmainham Jail, the Guinness Brewery, the Jameson Distillery, Phoenix Park, the Temple Bar, and of course some local pubs.  I was a bit disappointed in the Guiness Brewery, for one the beer isn't even brewed in the building anymore, but rather it is located next door.  And second, they have a beautiful old factory building and do a great introduction with a guide and then the rest is a SELF GUIDED museum up the 5 floors of the factory.  And third, the self guided tour cost 14 Euros!  At the top there is a cool bar with 360 degrees of windows that overlooks the city and you get your one free pint of Guinness.  But that didn't improve the tour for me since I don't even like beer.  I was comparing the tour to the one we did in Golden, Colorado of the Coors Brewery and I thought it was a much more informative and personal tour in Golden, and it was FREE!  But I don't suppose they have quite the amount of visitors in Golden, Colorado as they do in Dublin.

Don't let that smile fool you, he doesn't like Guiness either...he just can't throw away a free beer!

They make a perfect clover in the head of the beer.

Christchurch Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Anyhow...we also did a tour of the Jameson Distillery, which is also no longer making the whiskey in the current building.  The Jameson production has actually been moved to Cork, Ireland and no longer operates out of Dublin, but the old building has again been made into a museum.  Props to Jameson though as you also pay approximately 14 Euros for the tour, but they give a full guided tour through the whole distillery process.  And while I can't speak for all guides, ours was quite entertaining and very humorous...totally made the tour worth the money!  At the end they offer a tasting of their whiskey and even select a few people to participate in a whiskey taste test between Jameson, Jack Daniels, and Johnny Walker.  Well done, Jameson, but I still don't like whiskey!

Had to post the pic even though it's blurry...just makes me laugh :)

And we're back and composed...

The other tour we did that I thoroughly enjoyed was the tour of the Kilmainham jail.  This was a jail opened in the 1800's and housed many of the leaders of the multiple rebellious uprisings in Ireland in the early 1900's.  The jail closed its doors in the 60's and sat for 30 years before it was recently restored by over 400 volunteers working to bring back the historical site.  It was quite a grim and depressing site, straight out of the a movie, in fact 8 movies have been filmed there, with the most recent being The Escapist in 2008.  But they did an excellent job of telling the history of Ireland from the many uprisings to the Potato Famine and how and where the Kilmainham Jail played a part in history.  Very interesting.  They also had on display an open ledger where all the people were recorded when they were brought into the jail.  It listed the name, age, sex, height, weight, and the crime they were jailed for, here are a few that were listed:

Stealing apples from a tree.
Gambling on the Sabbath.
About to commit a felony.    (SERIOUSLY!!!)

Creepy...right?

The cells inside the jail.

The newer portion of the jail focused around a communal setting with plenty of sunlight.  Think the Green Mile...that's what it reminded me of.

Me inside one of the jail rooms.

Interesting little tour.  My other favorite part of Ireland were the little local pubs that were all playing variations of live Irish music combined with the classic American bar songs as well.  The scene was exactly how you would picture with the pints of beer and the old rustic bars with hanging lantern/chandeliers and old wood floors.  And to make it even more perfect we had the colorful crowd to match!  There was a large, loud Irishman drinking next to us at Fitzgerald's.  He went through about 5 pints while Taylor and Greg were on their second.  And he was singing along to the band, sometimes louder than the band, making friends with an older Irish gentleman next to him dressed in a nice suit.  We have our suspicions the older gentleman was an ex-con as we were eyeing his arms and his homemade, jail tattoos when he rolled his sleeves up to dance!  So funny...when we left the large, loud Irish gentleman was falling asleep at the bar and the older man was dancing away with new friends! 

Meet my new friends :)

Famous bar for which the district was named.  Our hotel was in the Temple Bar District.

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Dubliin was quite the lively town!  I loved the atmosphere and the fun local scene.  Great place to visit, next in Ireland I'd like to see the Cliffs of Moher, but that will have to be another trip as there was no time in our short three day weekend!