Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland
After a great night’s sleep in Dublin, this morning it was
time to begin our exploration of Dublin.
After puttering around the room too long this morning, we ended up in a
queue for breakfast, and turned what should have been a long leisurely
breakfast into a quick rush to hook up with the group at 8:45. We should have gotten up a little
earlier.
We met up with our local guide, Carol, who pointed out
various sights within the city on our way to our first stop at the Guinness
Brewery. Traffic is really bad in
Dublin, so much so that much of the downtown area is only open to commercial
traffic which look s a little unusual with lines of double-decker busses in
bumper to bumper traffic, with the occasional miniature taxi caught in
between. It must be scary looking up at
the double-deckers from the tiny taxi below.
The city really is beautiful, and judging by the number of construction
cranes dotting the skyline, construction is prospering. According to Carol, housing prices have
skyrocketed in Dublin, and now that some workers are able to work from home,
some of these workers are moving to the suburbs where housing prices are much
cheaper with a better quality of life.
We had expect a simple tour of the Guinness factory, but it
turned out to be what was essentially the “Disney of Beer”. The Guinness “factory” is a seven story
celebration of Guinness, with displays of the four ingredients: Water, Barley,
Hops, and Yeast.
There is a gift shop,
several bars and restaurants, displays of tools, equipment, and a better
appreciation of what has gone into the establishment of Guinness into the
international brand it is today. There
are displays of advertising campaigns over the years, and on the top floor is
the Gravity Bar, where our entrance ticket entitled us to a free glass of
Guinness, if you were up for beer at
10:00AM. There was a time that would have
sounded great, but instead we opted for Pepsi Max, our day-drinking days
relegated to our younger days.
When the tour was over, we headed down to the gift shop for
the obligatory t-shirts and magnet, then headed back to the bus for the second
destination of the day, Glendalough in Wicklow.
Glendalough literally means “valley of two lakes”, and is the sight for
the ruins of an early medieval monastery founded by St Kevin in the 6th
century. The site contains the ruins of
seven churches built within the monastery grounds along with a round tower
rising 100 ft in the air. Most of the
buildings date back to the 10th to 12th century. At the entrance is a double arch with a
sanctuary stone that has the carving of a cross on it. The legend is that anyone wishing to claim
sanctuary in the monastery could come to the sanctuary stone and claim
sanctuary. The monks would allow the
person to stay in the monastery for a
year and a day to decide whether they wanted to stay on permanently.
During this time, they were pledged to the
monastery, body and soul and must follow the monastery rules and perform
whatever work the monastery needed for the duration of their stay.
The monastery also contained a large graveyard, but it has
never been dug up, so no one really knows how many bodies are buried
there. There are many grave markers from
the 1700’s, but grave markers didn’t really become a thing until that
time. Most graves were marked with a
simple stone that only the family knew about since people really didn’t travel
outside the local area in those days.
When we finished checking out the ruins, we headed for the snack bar
outside the Glendalough Hotel for some snacks and a couple of lattes. There was a small area of vendors where we
got a magnet, but there was also an ice cream vendor where we scored a couple
of caramel sundaes.
Back on the bus, and we headed back to our hotel. It turns out our hotel is located in the
infamous Temple Bar district of Dublin.
We were in bed early last night and didn’t get a chance to venture out. But coming back to the hotel at 3:00 in the
afternoon and the Temple Bar district was already hopping. There is bar after bar along this area with
live Irish music coming out of most of them already. By evening this place is really jus one big
party!
We did venture out, first to Tesco, the local grocery store
for some supplies, and then to several of the gift shops in search of the
perfect t-shirts.
We peeked in to
several of the bars and everyone was having a great time. As it was getting close to 5:00, we headed
back to the hotel to get ready for the evening, Tonight we went to a place called Taylors
Three Rock Pub for dinner and to see the Irish Cabaret Show. In true Insight Vacation fashion, we were
given the long table right at center stage so that Jody and I were sitting only
a couple of chairs from the stage.
Dinner was delicious, we both has the vegetable soup,
salmon, and an apple dessert, though we both also passed on the Irish
coffee. The show was a spectacular
display of Irish music, singing, and dancing.
The performers were outstanding with the male lead singer just returned
from playing Jean Valjean from Les Misérables at London’s West End. They even had some audience members come up
on stage to play some Irish instruments, and try to do an Irish dance. Fortunately, none of the audience
participants were us.
At one point near the end of the show, the waitress came by
and removed the tablecloths from the first two tables in front of the stage
which were the tables where Jody and I were sitting.
One of the dancers then proceeded to step
down on the table, in front of us to perform a speed exhibition of his
footwork. It was really impressive to
see his footwork, only inches from our faces, knowing that with one slip, he
would be kicking me in the head.
The show ended with an audience singalong of Brown Eyed
Girl, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the show.
Cam told all of us that when the show was over, we should all try for
the gold medal in our exit of the pub and return to the bus. Gareth had parked the bus right next to the
exit, and we were only beaten on exit by another Insight Vacations bus from
some other tour. When I looked out in
the parking lot, I understood why. There
were at least ten other busses in the parking lot, and we got out before all of
them beating the traffic.
Soon we were back at the hotel, and if we were 30 years
younger, we would be heading out to the pubs in Temple Bar, but as we are not,
we headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest before leaving tomorrow for
Killarney.
2025-05-22