Our weekend in Dublin

On Friday morning, Kyle & I set off on our first trip since we've been here. We decided to spend the weekend exploring Dublin. It's only a brief 45 minute flight from Edinburgh. It was our first time flying on a budget airline, Ryan Air, but the experience was a good one. They even played a victory song when the plane arrived on time in Dublin.

Kyle getting ready for our flight to Dublin

Neither on of us really knew what to expect of Dublin. When I think of Ireland, I think of lush green landscape. But of course, it wouldn't be like that since we were in a city. The city itself was had a great atmosphere and much bigger than Edinburgh. There is a river running through the center of the city that divides it by north and south.

Liffey River through Dublin

This weekend Ireland played England in the Six Nations rugby tournament, so the city was full of festivities and people. We bought our tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour and tried to cram in as much as possible in our two days! There are quite a few impressive churches in Dublin. Christ's Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral being the two most famous. Kyle & I visited the grounds of Christ Church.

Christ Church

Here we are in front of Christ Church

I think the thing we were both the most excited about visiting in Dublin was the Guinness Storehouse. Both Kyle & I really enjoying visiting breweries so were excited to visit the Grandaddy of them all in the homeland of famous beer!

Here we are at the gates of the Guinness Storehouse

The tour itself is quite impressive. It is a self-guided tour through seven floors of the original Guinness warehouse that was started by Arthur Guinness 250 years ago. We even learned that stock from the original barley seed is kept in a vault at the storehouse for future generations. These people are serious about their brewing...

Guinness Vault replica

Kyle & I sampling some Guinness

The 7 story maze of the warehouse

As some of you may know, I am not a beer drinker. However, the Guinness from the brewery was really good and I thoroughly enjoyed my sampling experience!

After our tour of the Guinness Storehouse, we did a bit of exploring around the city. Dublin's cultural district is called the Temple Bar area. This area is lined with cobblestone streets and full of pubs and restaurants.

An Irish Pub in Temple Bar

We also took a stroll around Trinity College. The University was founded in 1592 and has around 15,000 students. It is also ranked 49th in the world rankings of Universities. Just a bit of information since I didn't know much about the University until our trip. The campus itself is located in the heart of Dublin and is quite beautiful.

Trinity College

Another interesting thing we saw on our Dublin Bus Tour was the President of Ireland's home, also known as Aras an Uachtarain (did I mention everything in Ireland is bi-lingual? All the signs read in Irish or English). The current President of Ireland is a woman and is serving out her second 7 year term. Looks similar to another house of a President...

The Aras an Uachtarain

A trip to Ireland would not be complete without some Irish Whiskey. So, Kyle & I jumped on the bandwagon and went to the Jameson Whiskey Distillery. The original distillery located on Bow Street in Dublin. The distillery is no longer in use, but has been turned into a museum and had quite an interesting tour where we learned all about the whiskey making process.

Inside the Jameson distillery

To make my father proud, I volunteered to be one of the 8 visitors who got to participate in the whiskey sampling. Each of us were given a sample of Scotch Whiskey, Irish Whiskey (Jameson of course) and American Whiskey (Jack Daniels). I choose the Scotch Whiskey as my favorite and received an official diploma deeming me an "Official Irish Whiskey Taste Tester". Needless to say, Kyle was very jealous.

Me and all my whiskey

The last tour we took was a tour of Kilmainham Jail. Built in 1796, Kilmainham Jail is now a museum. Check out more here. We learned about some of the prisoners who were kept at the prison and also about the hundreds of executions that took place here.

Gate near Kilmainham Jail

Inside the jail

One of the corridors

Many of the political prisoners of the 1916 rebellion were brought here to the Kilmainhaim Jail. Fourteen of the leaders of the 1916 rising were executed in the yard of the jail. A black cross stands in the spot today to commemorate their deaths.

Black cross for the leaders of the 1916 rising

Dublin was an exciting place to visit with lots of rich history and cultural atmosphere. We had a great weekend exploring a bit of Ireland. Next weekend I'm off to visit friends in Northern Scotland so more then! Here are the rest of our pictures from Dublin if you're interested.

-Stacie