Dublin, Ireland

Commuter on the streets of Dublin.

I would have a bit of trouble remembering which side to drive on as well, so the live-action billboard would be a big help.

Fiddle-head ferns in the Wickslow countryside.

Falls on the Powerscourt estate in the Wickslow countryside.

Sugarloaf Mountain. I think it's around 3500 feet or 1100ish meters high.

 

I find that I'm taking a lot of pictures of the phone booths that are present in the streets of Europe.

U2, Sinead O'Connor, and other Dublin musicians on the "Wall of Fame" in the Temple Bar district.

 

Beach shot of the Wicklow area about 10 miles away from Dublin.

I took a pass on the Guinness gelato. 

The corporate monolith that is the Guinness brewery.

 

...Just like everybody else does. I saw this lyric from the Smiths, and I love the Smiths along with U2 as probably among my all-time top-10 favorite bands, but they're from Manchester, UK and not Dublin, but I'm sure they played close by.

 

Shot of a velocipede in the visitor's lobby of the Jameson distillery. Not sure what it really had to do with the whiskey, but it was a cool artifact and had a connection to the Powerscourt estate we had toured earlier.

 

Probably a good thing to have liver insurance if you live in Ireland. Unless this is for life insurance, which would probably make more sense, but I could still really see a market for liver insurance.

 

Dang, I sure would like to see this show in Dublin about two weeks after our visit.

Robbie Williams is also playing, but I wouldn't be as excited to see him, even if he does look like Morrisey from the early years of the Smiths. We saw a bar in the Temple Bar district that had a tie-in promotion to the concert with a few Robbie cocktails and Robbie-themed surprises all day, but as far as I could tell, Mr. Williams himself wouldn't actually be at the bar. Bummer.

Pint of Guinness at the Gin Saloon.

 

Had a few days in Dublin, Ireland after a quick stay in Belfast. Dublin is a bit more modern, seeming to have more of that big-city quality to me that Belfast didn't really have. Dublin is bigger, obviously, and it is home to one of my favorite bands growing up, U2, so I was hoping to catch some sign of the foursome's old haunts. Dublin is also home to the quintessential dry Irish stout Guinness, but I have a confession–I don't really care that much for Guinness. It's a workable option if there's a poor selection on tap otherwise, but as far as a well-crafted brew, it's a bit thin, bland, and low on taste as well as calories (I think of it as a light/diet beer). It's everywhere on the streets since there are lots of pubs on the streets in Dublin, so I probably would encounter it at some point in the short Dublin stay.

Day one, we headed into County Wicklow to see the countryside. Barely 10 miles away from city centre Dublin we were on the rocky shoreline near Sugarloaf mountain. Too cold to swim, and it was windy, too, but the sun peeked out and shone perkily on the emerald countryside. The beach wasn't really sand so much as rocks, pebbles, and ground-up shells, so Jasper and I had a few minutes to throw stones into the surf and skip rocks on the beach before we were bussed off to the next stop at the highest waterfall in Ireland. Pretty countryside, and we had a pretty chill afternoon once we were back aboard the ship.

Day two, we headed out in the off-and-on drizzle to a couple free National museums. The Irish Natural History Museum, aka the Dead Zoo as the locals call it, houses a collection of fossils, insect specimens, skeletons, and a surprisingly large assortment of native and worldwide taxidermy. The animals in the collection are faded and aging, and the building itself is due for a renovation which is scheduled to come up in the next decade, so the facility as well as the holdings were a step back in time. After the museum, I cut out on my own to do some touristy things including–gasp–a visit to Guinness.

I had a few Irish Pounds in my pocket and was in the mood to walk, so rather than taking a tram (no subway in Dublin), I located the "storehouse" and headed in that direction. I could smell malt mashing as I got close, and I saw buildings with signage indicating it was right straight ahead. That in reality meant a walk around several blocks, as the brewery sits on I would estimate several dozen city blocks. It's a huge brewery and really is a mass-market churner-outer of the local quaffable beer, but as far as a true craft beer, it's not. I went into the visitor entrance and saw there was a nice tour, but I took a pass since it was 16 Euro 50, so heck with that. I'm not paying that much for a factory brewery tour, pint at the end be damned. Still, I snapped a few pictures and then headed off to the Jameson Distillery.

I've also had an interest in distillation, and I really like bourbon and would love to dabble in single-malt scotches but am a bit afraid of the price tag for entry. That's being said as I sip on one of the Cantillons I picked up in Brussels which goes for a nice tidy sum back home but was pretty affordable at the source. So, I found the building about a mile from Guinness, and it looked nice from the outside and had some of the old stonework incorporated into the expanded factory as the distillery grew over the past few decades. I believe both Guinness and Jameson have been around since the mid 1700s, so there's a lot of history in them both. Upon entering the visitor's entrance, I saw that there were several scheduled tours coming up, all sold out, despite the 14 Euro 50 entrance fee. What is up with these entry fees? I passed again and figured I'd walk back to the ship and stop somewhere along the way for a pint.

I could have taken a tram from near Jameson but decided to walk since it was a pretty afternoon and I wanted to see some of the local scenery. Lots of bars along the waterfront, and there's a district called the Temple Bar District with lots of restaurants and pubs. In fact, Ellen, Sandy, Jasper, and I went there the first evening for some live Irish music, and it was okay but not what Jasper would call a good time, so we didn't stay too late. On this afternoon, there was no Irish music that I could find on the other side of the river, and that was okay with me, since really all I wanted was a pint at a more secluded pub. I found a spot called the Gin Saloon, which was a bit glitzy with an old-style mirror-backed bar and lots of liquor bottles of whiskeys and gins along with a few tap handles. No beer engines that I could see, but among the choices of Bulmer's Cider (with–I swear–a small video screen showing adverts for Bulmer's/Magner's), Bud, Coors Light, and Smithwick's, there was the mandatory Guinness handle.

This place also seemed to have cheaper pints by at least a Euro than in the Temple Bar district, so it worked for me. I asked the bar staff for a pint, and about five minutes later a cascading brownish-black liquid was in front of me. Guinness is served on Nitrogen versus CO2 as most tap beers aside from cask to try to duplicate the cask look and feel. It's a bit different and I'd say inferior, but dang if it doesn't look nice in a glass with the foam lasting for minute after minute.

Made it back aboard the MV Explorer with quite a lot of time to spare before heading off to our last sea day. Dover, England is the next stop, and it's where I get off and the round-the-world journey reaches its conclusion.