Dublin & Tour of Southern Ireland

I arrived in Dublin in the early afternoon, with directions to the hostel. Unfortunately, I hadn't familiarized myself enough with Dublin's geography before I started walking. My directions said to cross a certain bridge and walk towards the hostel. I saw a bridge in front of me and walked down it, but as I was to find out, Dublin is separated by the River Liffey, which has about a dozen bridges across it. After wandering around, with a very heavy pack, and having to dig the guidebook out of it twice, I finally made it to the hostel. It was in the very well known Temple Bar district, which is a full of pubs and seems to be the centre of Dublin's nightlife. I was booked in a 10 room mixed dorm (because I made the booking before I got here and realized that you don't get much sleep in big dorm rooms like that and that sometimes going the cheapest wasn't always for the best). I wandered around the Grafton Street area (like Robson St. in Vancouver), and down the major street of O'Connell Street. I was amazed at how busy Dublin was. It was absolutely jam-packed with people speaking all sorts of languages. Despite the fact that it's cool here, there seem to be many many tourists. I decided to go to the hostel for an early night, because I was leaving on a 3 day tour of Southern Ireland in the morning. Instead I ended up checking out one of the famous temple bars Gogarty's, which was packed wall to wall. I've never seen such a busy bar, but everyone seemed pretty used to it.

The next morning, I was off to get picked up for my bus tour and just a little sleep deprieved. The buses were late due to traffic, and when they finally starting walking us to the buses, a group of us followed the wrong people and got lost. We figured they probably wouldn't leave without the 10 of us, until someone pointed out that we also had the list of people who were supposed to be on the tour. Then we got a bit worried, but we turned around and headed back to where we started, and met a very flustered tour guide on the way. We were all very relieved to get on the bus and get settled in.

Our first stop before we left Dublin was the Phoenix Park. It's the largest enclosed park in Europe, and has its own herd of deer, as well as the largest christian (non-celtic) cross around. We got some good pictures, then jumped on the bus and headed to our next stop. We arrived at Clonmacnoise Monastery in the afternoon. It's got several very old stone structures, and some beautiful stone celtic crosses, as well as a very old graveyard. I got some great pictures of it. Then we headed to the small town of Galway for the night. We saw their beautiful abbey and had lunch at Munroe's Irish Pub. It's a very happening little town, and had lots of tourists and some neat buskers in the streets. The next morning, we were off again and to the Burren area. The most famous part of this are the Cliffs of Moher. These are dramatic cliffs overlooking the atlantic that you can walk right to the edge of because there are no fences at the edge (although technically that part is private property and you're not supposed to go there, but everyone does). They were beautiful (though I think for dramatic beauty, I liked the cliffs at the Butt of Lewis better), and full of tourists and a large tourist centre. That afternoon we stopped in Killarney for the night. We went out to a local pub, and everyone watched the final of the World Rugby match (yawn), so I had an early night. The next day, we got up early to have a horse drawn carriage ride around Killarney National Park, which is supposed to be one of the 1001 things to do before you die. It was a lovely ride through the park, which has two herds of deer, a castle, a lake and some amazing views. After that we jumped back on the bus and drove to see the Blarney Castle. The castle is over 600 years old and holds the famous Blarney Stone. The story goes that many years ago an army was sent to take the castle from its owner Cormac McCarthy, who somehow managed to talk them out of it, so the castle was never taken. Now, its said that if you kiss the blarney stone you will be blessed with the gift of eloquent speech and never be at a loss for words. I waited patiently in line, and did actually kiss the stone, which you must do by lying on your back and kissing the stone with your head tilted back. It's a strange experience as you are hanging over a grate and are a long way up, but there is someone there to support you. The castle itself is quite beautiful, with long winding stairs and fantastic views from the top.

After all this, it was back to Dublin where we started. I met a couple from Alberta on the tour who were staying at the same hostel as me, and we went out to the Arlington Hotel that night. It's famous for its live Irish Music and Irish Dancing. It was by far the largest bar I have ever seen, and like all irish pubs, it was packed. But the music was great, and the dancing was really amazing, just like River Dance, but it was free.

The next day, I decided to take the hop-on hop-off bus tour of Dublin. It was a nice way to see the city and had a lively commentary. Most of the galleries were closed on Mondays, but I did manage to see the National Gallery which had some wonderful paintings. There are also many statues in Dublin, and I got some good pictures of the famous Molly Malone (from the song, which I heard many times in Ireland), and Oscar Wilde. After all that sightseeing, I decided to relax a bit, and went to the movies to watch Stardust (which was a nice fantasy movie).

That was my time in Ireland, next stop London....