We landed on time at the Dublin airport after a night of little sleep and some good turbulence coming into landing. A quick pass through customs, and we were off to the luggage carousel to retrieve our backpacks. In a groggy state, we grumble at each other as we fix our packs and try to figure out how to get downtown to our hostel. We decide on not the cheapest option due to being tired and pay 20 euros to take an express bus, for which we waited 10+ minutes. It drops us a few blocks from our hostel, and we hoof it over to the hostel, where we are allowed to store our bags until we can properly check in around 15:30. The gal at the desk gives us tons of options for things to see and places to go. We already had a list of things, but listened to her advice and at least went to Brother Hubbards for brunch.
After we were fed, we wandered off towards our first appointment...the Guinness Storehouse Tour/Experience. We wandered across the Ha'penny Bridge over the river Liffy and headed to the far reaches of Dublin for our 13:00 appointment to learn about Guinness and have the taste of guinness that everyone said, "you need to do when in Ireland."
Along the way, we wandered upon the Dublin Castle, which didn't quite look like a castle as much as a fort. So, we were a little confused. Due to time constraints, I simply took a photo, looked around the courtyard a little, and we moved on towards Guinness. As we used Google maps to help guide us towards our destination, we wandered past more places we would have loved to actually tour had we the time to do so.
From Christ Church Cathedral, we made our way to St Patrick's Cathedral. Why wouldn't one stop to check out this place with its gardens when in Dublin? Again, I would have loved to have toured the inside, but we were on a mission to get to Guinness in time for our tour. The park and gardens of this beautiful cathedral were beautiful to see as we wandered a little to take photos of the outside.
After St Patrick's Cathedral, we made our way to the Guinness neighborhood, where we stopped at St James Church, where the Camino Society of Dublin have an office, and I purchased my passport for the Camino de Santiago. It is said that many Irish Pilgrims made their way from Ireland to Spain and on to Santiago de Compostela. There are many routes in Ireland that can be used to complete a total distance of 75km, and that will be used to be able to then go to the north of Spain, and hike to Santiago de Compostela from there to obtain the completion certificate of having completed the Camino de Santiago. With the passport, one just needs to obtain a certain number of stamps from certain places to show you have gone the distance. The St James Church, Pearse Lyons Distillery, and Guinness were 3 places I was able to obtain stamps easily along what is referred to as the Camino de Dublin. Later in our trip, we will complete the Kerry Camino, which was over 75km.
Finally, we made it to Guinness. We had a little time to spare, so we wandered towards the jaunting cabs, talked to the horses, and scoped out the outside of the guinness complex. Yes! It is a complex of buildings that take up a large portion of that area of Dublin. The line was already beginning to form, so we decided to get in line, and watch the people as they arrived. We didn't have to wait long.
As we entered the 6+ floor building, we found our way into a welcoming hall with the gift shop on our left and history and information boards about Guinness on our right. We listened to a little welcome presentation that reviewed the rules of the place and a little of the layout before being released to wander along our self guided tour of Guinness.
My husband and I have been to the Coors Tour here in Golden, CO a bunch of times since moving here, and so the brewing process was not new to us. We also are somewhat of beer snobs, so we are familiar with Guinness and the stout style. We had to say that the spectacle of the Guinness tour was pretty fantastic compared to Coors; however, we never felt part of the beer/brewing process as we never were seeing the true production line like we do at Coors. At Coors, you get to see the copper kettles, the malting area, the idea area, and all the steps of the process in creating Coors. At Guinness, they simply had signs and videos telling you about it and its purpose in relation to the taste and appearance of Guinness. By the end, we felt that Guinness and Coors could work together to create some amazing brewery experiences. This was discussed amongst ourselves as we took in the views from the gravity bar and drank our complimentary Guinness. The views really were pretty amazing.
Once we were done with our Guinness, we both were pretty wiped out, and decided we had just enough time to quickly walk back to the hostel, get properly checked in, take a quick nap, change clothes, and head to our Whiskey Museum tour at 17:00. At this point, we had basically been awake for a little over 24 hours with maybe a small nap on the plane across the Atlantic. So, off we headed realizing there was definitely a more direct route we could have taken than the weaving in and out of places that we took to get to Guinness.
After our nap and refresh, we headed out on the town for the evening. We had limited time in Dublin, so we were trying to do as much as possible in the day. The Whiskey Museum was not far from the Abbey Court Hostel, where we were staying, and we were able to check out some sights along the way. One of these sites was the Molly Malloy statue, which it is said that if you rub her breast you will experience good fortune. Looking at the bronze statue, you could tell many had done just that, and because my husband would not let me photograph him rubbing her breast, I had to settle with a stranger doing it.
With whiskey knowledge in our heads, we headed to dinner at The Church. This is a place my husband had found and decided he wanted to take me for my birthday dinner. My birthday wasn't for another week, but he wanted to make sure to take me to a nice place for dinner. It was a pub/restaurant that had been created within an old church in Dublin. We were seated above the main floor of the restaurant, and had a great view of the stage where there was music and Irish dancers. We asked the waitress to suggest a whiskey despite having just come from the Whiskey Museum, and she pointed us to the Jameson Black Barrel. It was delicious. The food was good, dessert was great, and the atmosphere was wonderful. We both hit the restrooms before departing.
These bathrooms were located in the basement area of the restaurant, which housed another part of the restaurant/pub/bar. The front desk gal at the hostel told us we needed to check out the restrooms, and she was not wrong. It was like one big restroom with just the back wall having a sign designating one side as ladies and the other side as gents. When I came out of my stall, I could look straight into the men's restroom, and they could look into the ladies room. It made us laugh. No! There were not men standing at urinals or women with their skirts hiked up playing with their pantyhose or anything like that, but it still made us chuckle. The gal from the hostel was right in telling us to check them out.
Now that our bellies were full, we wandered back towards the hostel with a plan to wander through the Temple Bar area. We had briefly checked it out during daylight hours, but it was recommended in the plethora of YouTube videos we watched to check it out at night. It was definitely busier than it was during the daylight. We thought we would just pop into a pub and grab a drink, but the pubs along the Temple Bar area were bursting at the seams. So, we took video and photos and continued towards our hostel. Maybe another trip to Ireland we will find ourselves grabbing drinks in the Temple bar area. Tonight, we were reading for bed as we had to get up early enough to catch a train the next morning.
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