Not An Irish Goodbye

Bryan and Mary

The next morning we were getting on the road back to Dublin. J&K and now Kat and George, had yet to spend time there, so we wanted to make sure they had a day to see some of the sites. We had about a four hour drive, so we got up early and hit the road. Our plan was to drop off our car at the airport, check in at our hotel to drop our bags (also by the airport) and then head into Dublin. J&K were scheduled to take the tour of Trinity College and the Long Library, the one we did earlier in the visit. They were on a tighter schedule than us, so took off earlier and we hung out back at O’Donoghue’s pub while they did the tour. The pub is right
across the street so it’s a great meeting place….and we had other friends to join us! Our last travel partner of the trip, Mary, who used to work with Bryan and now lives in Dublin, was coming to spend the day with us! It was so much fun to see our group expand more and more with every town we visited!

Following their visit to Trinity College, J&K met us and we all began a little walking tour of Dublin. It was on this tour that we reconnected with Kat and George. They had incredible car issues (a terrible flat tire!) that kept them from getting to Dublin for the tour, so they just wandered the city on their own until we could meet up with them. Because Bryan and I had done the Rick Steves walking tour earlier in the week, we made sure to show everyone some of the highlights – and saw a few new sights ourselves! We made our way across the city, stopping at Dublin Castle to walk the grounds, before taking a break at the Brazen Head. Everyone felt it was only right to stop for a drink at the pub before making our last stop of the day – TheGuinness Factory and tour.

Normally this is not a tour that Bryan and I would be interested in, but many people we spoke with said that it was a must do – so we gave it a shot! I’ll be honest, by this part of the trip – especially with so many one night stays – we were both pretty tired. The brewery and tour were definitely very unique, unlike any brewery we’d done before, but we were having a hard time getting excited with how tired we were. Enjoy a few of the fun photo opportunities we had!

At the end of the tour, we were all ready for dinner. We had made reservations at the Bank Bar that Bryan and I also visited earlier in the week. We assured everyone that it was well worth it and we would enjoy it again. More importantly, we knew that Katie and Kat would enjoy the design because of their professions as architects. And it was at this last stop that Jonathan crossed whiskey #40 off his list – the last ‘Spot’ of the trip – a coveted ‘blue Spot’. So special it came in a fancy tray – although that could have been more about the venue than the whiskey. 😊

We all enjoyed a delicious dinner before heading back to our hotel – we had an early flight home to catch! But wait, we couldn’t end this trip without a little bit more excitement. We got back to our hotel pretty late – probably close to midnight – and we had to get up early for our 7:30am flight. While Bryan and I were getting ready for bed, our toilet broke and water started flooding the entire room – ha! Bryan tried to stop it but didn’t have the tools to do it – he tried using a spoon! While he did that, I called the front desk and told them (probably a little too unpleasantly) that they needed to hurry! Luckily, they gave us another room and we found ourselves getting about three hours of sleep before it was time to get up for the airport….but that is what the plane ride home is for – to SLEEP! And that’s just what we did the entire flight home. Eventually we made it (and our bags too, although that also took a day) and we continue to reflect back on what will be one of the most memorable trips of our lives. We have already planned a reunion trip to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversaries. Now, time to plan a wedding! 😊

Bioluminescent Kayaking

Kinsale to Skibbereen is only about 90 minutes, but it just so happens that this part of town is also home to the most famous golf course in all of Ireland – Old Head. Originally, Jonathan had looked at this one as an option for his 40^th birthday – but the price tag was a little too much sticker shock. At around $400 per person for golf, we decided we should stop and take a picture instead. Even that was hard to do……the course itself has a gate that should belong to a castle – you can’t even drive up to the golf course property without a reservation! But the views from that spot were still pretty epic!

So on to Skibbereen we go! When we started planning this trip with J&K, Katie had an IT issue (unrelated to the trip) that led to a very serendipitous moment while getting her laptop fixed! I won’t go into the long story of it all, but what she discovered was that she had a connection to a distillery called West Cork that is based in – you guessed it – Skibbereen! Leading up to the trip, we learned that they would be doing some tastings in Denver, so we tried them out so we could be the ‘experts’ on West Cork Irish Whiskey. When we got into town that afternoon, we were treated to a private tour of their distilleries thanks to the connections Katie had made. It was really neat to be able to tour a distillery that is not one you will regularly see on the Viator websites! Thanks, Katie for the awesome connection!

Following the distillery tour, Bryan and I were pretty tired and we still had a lot of day left to go – so we decided to go back for a nap while the other four toured more of the city! We all met back together for dinner at the Church. What has been so neat about Ireland is how many buildings have been repurposed for use today, rather than a scrape and rebuild. We had the

Bank Bar, the Old Bank Hotel and now the Church restaurant! This building was used as a church from 1883-2003 when it was repurposed for use as a restaurant. Unfortunately, in 2006, there was a terrible fire destroying the building – but they restored it as best as they could to it’s original look.

Now is the time where I answer the question you didn’t ask – why were we on the road so much instead of staying in one place? As we were planning this trip, a friend and former co-worker of Bryan’s who lives in Dublin, mentioned this lake called Lough (lock) Hyne and how it was the only saltwater lake in Europe. If you visited it at just the right time of year, you could kayak at night (yes at night) and see the bioluminescence that came off the lake due to the saltwater. Once Bryan heard about this, he wanted to do everything he could to make the kayak trip happen! He did a lot of research and discovered that the season to see it would just be starting toward the end of our trip – so we needed to visit on this particular day to try and see it in action.

This kayaking trip was the other reason we needed to get a rental car. The trip was about 15 minutes outside of Skibbereen with no bus, so it made the most sense for us to drive ourselves. The adventure had us starting at 8:30pm at the lake. We were able to get ‘suited up’ and enjoy the lake scenery before it got dark. While we were waiting, we saw a seal in the water! We later learned that there is one entry point that connects the lake to the ocean – which is how it becomes the saltwater lake. When the tide is high, other creatures come in from the ocean and sometimes will stick around! The guides told us they have seen sharks and even a four foot long lobster – so the seal was also no surprise!

In order to see the bioluminescence you have to kayak when it is dark out or it can’t be seen. This can certainly cause challenges since you have to ask yourself – how do I know where to kayak and go? The instructors did a great job of numbering us off so that we all could report back and make sure we were accounted for. They also each had a red light (rather than white) to follow, one instructor stayed in the front and one kept the rear.

The kayaks were for two people and the back person ‘steered’ with their feet – so I assigned Bryan to that job. It was such a cool experience kayaking all around the lake – they essentially had us take one big loop around the exterior. At one point, the instructors had said ‘don’t go to the right of me’, but somehow Bryan and I missed him saying that and we got stuck on the rocks. Because you couldn’t see much, it was hard to push ourselves out, but it made for the most beautiful site – the sparks were flying! Yes, we were fortunate enough to see the bioluminescence throughout our trip! I had taken my phone to take pictures but quickly realized that you wouldn’t be able to capture it. It’s just too quick and magical for a photo to do it justice. The best way to see it was when there was friction with the water – so when we got stuck on the rocks, it was great – ha! We could regularly see it when our paddles hit the water and off the back of another’s kayak as it made waves. It was so incredible and we were all thankful we had the opportunity to see it!

It was so dark out on the lake that it was a bit misleading how far you were or where you were on the lake, so I was ready to be done when we wrapped up – and cold! Multiple times we said to each other, we’re kayaking in Ireland at night – how amazing?! To learn all about this adventure, check out their website with Atlantic Sea Kayaking here.

Once we got back to the hotel, we were all running a bit on adrenaline, so we grabbed a drink at the bar before they closed, and then another nightcap in the hotel room and played some games. One more day to go!

Colorful Kinsale

The morning of April 13 had us kickstart the final leg of our journey and (eventually) pick up another pair of travel friends! In the morning, we checked out of our AirBnb and walked back through the city center of Galway to pick up our rental car. The process was a little funny – check in and get registered for your car – then walk, maybe half a mile?, to a parking garage where all of the rental cars are stored. Because we had never driven on the ‘opposite’ side of the road, we opted for an upgrade to an automatic so Bryan nor Jonathan would have to worry about the manual shift while driving. What a test we had right out of the gate – adjust to driving on the other side of the road AND get yourself out of this narrow, concrete parking garage! The boys did great driving and navigating where we needed to go.

From here, we were headed to the southern coastal port town of Kinsale. We had talked about making some detours along the way, but it is already a 3-4 hour drive and we would only have one day, so we made it as straight of a shot as we could. We stopped in the ‘big city’ of Limerick, handled more narrow parking garages and stopped for lunch at the Hook andLadder right near the river, then hopped back in the car and kept on our way.

Our fancy equipment

Kinsale is very small and there is not a lot of public parking – our hotel did not offer any. Luckily, there was one city lot right across the street from our hotel. Somehow, we were able to find a spot and learn that to park there overnight would only cost us a few euros. We checked into our hotel at the Old Bank – a sort of bed and breakfast - that actually used to be an old bank. This hotel was one that I was most excited about going into the trip and we were a little disappointed in the end. To be fair, Bryan had paid for one of the more inexpensive rooms because we didn’t think it mattered for just one night…..turns out, even the hotel staff felt bad for us because apparently it was a very TINY room – ha! We had no idea, clearly. They gave us an upgrade to a slightly bigger room which was very kind of them. Jonathan and Katie had the ‘penthouse’ with a beautiful view of the water and what had been a recently remodeled room. Ours was not – ha! We had some fun with the lack of upgrades in our room, but again, we were only there one night so went on our way!

After checking in to the hotel and freshening up, we made our way walking through town. We found a small map and made our own path to see some of the sites. Prior to arriving, we knew that Kinsale was a very colorful town – with colors all over the buildings. Katie had the great idea to plan our outfits accordingly so we could take some photo shoots along the way. We had a great time reading about the history of the town, but also finding different buildings to jump in front of for a photoshoot!

After some time, we decided to stop for a drink at what we thought was this adorable pub entrance. We walk through the doors of the ‘WhiteHouse’ only to find out that not only did we come through the back, this place was very big – we had a looooooong way to go to find the front AND a bartender to serve us! By this point, we had looped back around and making our way near to the hotel again, killing time until our dinner reservation. We stopped at a place called the Oscar Madison bar, so Katie could take a great photo against the color, and for another drink. To our surprise, we walked in the back again – so this was now the new tradition of our bar hopping in Ireland.

More photoshoots before making our way to dinner, a restaurant called Fishy Fishy. This was one that I had read about ahead of time and one of a few things that I really wanted to do on the trip. It was another Michelin Guide restaurant and is known for listing on the menu who caught the fish….that day! We were thinking of getting oysters anyway, and when we saw that another ‘Jamie’ caught them – no brainer. At dinner here, Bryan and I were fortunate enough to be surprised by my sister with a bottle of champagne to toast our engagement. She coordinated with Jonathan so that he could pick something out for us all to celebrate. The food was everything you wanted it to be and more! Bryan got the fish and chips and we think on our fish and chips tour of Ireland – this was probably the favorite so far. But everyone had a delicious meal – highly recommend a stop here if you’re in Kinsale!

After dinner, we made our way to the Blue Haven hotel and bar. Earlier in the day, we saw they were going to have live music, so we knew we should make a visit. At the Blue Haven, the boys crossed another ‘Spot’ off their list and we enjoyed a singer that gave the bar quite the ‘lounge’ vibe. To wrap up the night, we went back up to J&K’s room for more whiskey (my new favorite, Crested!) and then called it a night! 

The next morning, we all met for breakfast at the hotel restaurant. It was here that we finally met up with our other travel partners, Kat and George. Remember I said that Katie’s business partner lives in London and she went to visit them first? Yup, that’s the same Kat and George! We were so excited that they decided to join us for part of the trip, unfortunately, it was not smooth sailing for them. Literally. Because the wind and rain was so bad, the ferry that Kat and George took out of London was delayed. Originally they were supposed to join us for the entire day in Kinsale, but they came in VERY late and missed the entire day. We were thankful they finally found us!

Because Kat and George hadn’t seen much of Kinsale, the six of us decided to go for a walk

View on the Scilly Walk

in the morning before heading out of town. There is a path called the Scilly (pronounced silly) Walk that takes you around the edge of the water and (if you want to) the ruins that remain from the Battle of Kinsale – Charles Fort and James Fort. The loop is about 40 min out and 40 minutes back, so we didn’t go the entire way, but enjoyed the beautiful views along the way! After the walk, we loaded up on some snacks at the grocery store and got in the car for our next destination – Skibbereen!

Almost the Cliffs of Moher

Only Cliffs of Moher we got

Our last full day in Galway was meant to be a tour to the famous Cliffs of Moher. It was one of the few things I knew I wanted to do. We woke up early and found a cute café in town where we all had breakfast, than walked through the main square to the tour stop and got on the bus. The drive wasn’t supposed to be terribly long to the Cliffs, but about 30 minutes later, the tour guide said that due to the weather, we weren’t going to be able to go to them. The language he used was gale force winds and because of the structure of the Cliffs, they are extremely dangerous to be on during weather like that. I was pretty devastated, but what can you do? The driver told us he would take us to something called the ’baby cliffs' that he thinks are much prettier anyway.

Along the route, our driver shared lots of information about Ireland history. Many homes (and businesses) in Ireland have thatch roofs which are often times still kept. A thatch roof is one made up of straw, hay or other vegetation. It is meant to help shed the water away so also acts like additional insulation. Because of this, the water fell from the eaves of the thatch roof and dropped to the ground. Well, history tells us that when someone would come up to a house, they would stand near this spot of water - where it dropped - and listen to a conversation that was happening inside the house. Because they were standing where the eaves dropped the water, the phrase eavesdropping - referring to someone who was secretly listening - was born.

Thatch roof

One of the stops on the tour is at a town called Lahinch. Here we wandered the streets, found another bookstore, got some ice cream, and took in the views. From there, we loaded back into the bus and stopped in a small town called Doolin for lunch at McGann's pub. The restaurant is used to the tours coming by, so they have a set menu of so many options to choose. Bryan and I had decided we were now doing a fish and chips tour to find our favorite – so we had to place an order of that here. We felt pretty good saying that with each fish and chips meal, the food got better!

We were required to sit at certain tables for lunch, so the four of us could easily sit together. There happened to be two singles on the tour bus that sat next to each other and we couldn’t help but pretend they were making a love connection! They ordered the same meal (they’re both vegetarians), they’re both going on these solo journeys together and seemed to have a lot in common…..so naturally, we planned their wedding – without them knowing we were doing it. Not many people read these blogs, but maybe they will come across it somehow and report back to us. Ha!

After lunch, we went to the consolation (in my mind) baby cliffs. The color and topography of these

cliffs were really neat, but I have to say, considering how windy it was, I am so glad that we were safe and couldn’t imagine how scary the real Cliffs of Moher might be. The wind was so forceful and loud – I went into mama bear mode. Jonathan wanted to venture out toward the edge of the cliffs and see the views and I kept yelling at him to come back – I was terrified……but he couldn’t hear a peep I was saying because the wind was so loud! Check out this video of Katie almost blowing over just trying to walk around. The weather made it quite an experience to share!

From here, we got back in the bus and our tour guide gave us a long and winding route back to Galway telling stories along the way. We drove through the tiny town of Fanore, which is believed to be where surfing was invested. And he drive us by the 'smallest church in Ireland' which turned out to be just a village well, but the beauty of it had us thinking otherwise!

The driving is where you have to give major kudos to these bus drivers. It is weird enough for us to see the driver on the ‘wrong side of the road’, but these roads they are driving on are backcountry and NARROW. Multiple times, other buses and cars would pass by and we felt like we should suck it in to help them pass…..these busses pass by each other with inches (if that) to spare – it is so impressive! That alone should be it’s own tour. Our driver had a cute passenger to help him along the way.

Fiddler, our co-captain

When we got back to Galway, we all cleaned up and got ready for dinner. While golfing the day before, J&K had learned about a Michelin-guide restaurant called, Kai, that was just a couple of blocks away from us. It sounded delicious and fun, so we made a reservation. They only do seating in two time blocks, so we were happy to get one on short notice. After learning about our Irish friends (the lambs), we decided to have some delicious lamb for dinner and then do a mini repeat of our first night in Galway – drinks and games back at the AirBnb. It had been a busy few days and it was our last night in Galway – off for a new adventure tomorrow – driving our own car in Ireland!

Sprinting a Marathon of Irish Whiskey

Our friends, Jonathan and Katie had spent a couple of days in London before meeting us in Ireland,

with their friends (and Katie's business partner), Kat and George. We all met at the train station, at a restaurant called The Galway Hooker where we planned to have lunch and then catch our train. After getting engaged a couple days earlier, we had called friends and family to tell them the news. Because
we were going to see J&K soon, we decided to wait and tell them in person. To this day, we like to joke about how we made them tell us all about London, then we told them about all the details of our trip – saving the engagement for last! I talk with my hands a lot and was getting really excited, so had to sit on my hands to not give anything away! To celebrate – Katie went and bought us all shots to kickstart the trip – here we go! We made our way to the train and the journey to Galway (about 3.5 hours) started. 

When we arrived in Galway, it was raining and we had planned to walk to our AirBnb (highly recommend staying at this spot) – it wasn’t that far! We didn’t account for the wind – I’m sure plenty of folks were quite entertained seeing us walking through the streets of Galway, trying to use umbrellas, but the wind is blowing them apart, and then trying to figure out which way to turn to find our home……I think we all dropped our bags in relief when we finally got inside! Everyone was a little worn out from the travel of the day (J & K had flown in that morning from London), so we decided to keep it a fairly mellow night. 

We made the short walk back to the Latin Quarter of Galway (where most of the pubs are) and tried a handful of restaurants before finding Gemelles that could take us for dinner without a reservation. We had a great meal and then went across the street to 1520 for a quick drink. After that, we decided to get in our pj’s and hang at the house. We went and bought snacks, wine and Irish whiskey…….K&J bought Glendalough whiskey, not even knowing those were the mountains we had visited the day before! We played Go Fish, had a dance party enjoyed other games and drank the night away! 

Late night shenanigans

The next day was a big one – Jonathan’s 40th birthday pub crawl!! When we originally planned this trip, Jonathan had asked us to go to Kentucky with them to do the bourbon trail…..we asked instead how he felt about doing the Irish whiskey trail! So today was Jonathan’s day, whatever he

wanted to do! In researching for the trip, we discovered that Galway has a whiskey trail, so part of the day's plan was to 'follow' it and go to as many of the bars as we could hit. The morning started with J&K going golfing early in the morning. Because Bryan and I aren’t golfers, we told them we’d meet up with them at lunch time and start the day…….we were told golfing was super cold and rainy – and they were some of the only people on the course! And they got two birdies on the course - woohoo!

At 1pm, we all met at Tigh Neachtain's for lunch and to start our day of drinking. Jonathan decided he wanted to try 40 Irish whiskeys for his 40th birthday (not all in one day) so we had some work to do! On this day he knocked a lot of those 40 whiskeys off the list, hence why we sprinted the marathon. We chose to do a lot of flights throughout the day and even a sip of a whiskey was counted on the list! Naturally, the day gets a little fuzzy as it goes on, so I’ll just list the bars we went to and let you decide if it’s a stop for you! Most of these pubs are within steps of each other so it is very easy to hop around,

Sonny Molloy's (which turned out to actually be the Front Door - they are connected)

Then the REAL Sonny Molloy's

Dail Bar

Freeney's

Dinner at Trattoria Magnetti (the host lost our reservation that we had just made that morning)

The Quays - One of the best stops to make in Galway for live music

Garavans

Tig Choili

1520

Back to the Quays to end the night

We made a joke that day that someone always had the baton – whoever had the energy and was keeping the party going! With such a long day, the baton got passed a lot! At about 12pm, I finally said, you guys can call it, but this girl has to call it a night! I'm not 21 anymore! :) As we made our way back to the AirBnb, Katie was convinced she should go swimming in the mini waterfall that was in the courtyard of our home. It took a lot of work to keep her out of the water - that's what drinking whiskey all day will make you want to do.

Happy birthday, Jonathan!!!

Easter in Ireland

The next day was Easter Sunday and we were a little nervous about being able to find things to do in Ireland on this day since Easter is such a big part of Irish culture. Luckily, we found a day trip out of Dublin that took us to the Wicklow Mountains, a stop to see a sheepdog demonstration and ending in the town of Kilkenny.

We started the morning with a breakfast to go from the hotel…..I have to say, as much as I love AirBnBs and the wonderful owners, it’s so nice to have the extra amenities of a hotel. We grabbed our breakfast and walked to the meeting place of our tour bus and ate it while we waited to get started, it was great and so easy!

Our guide, Roger, started us off with a drive through Dublin to get out of town. He taught us several things about Dublin and Ireland. As we drove through town, he pointed out all of the colored doors on the homes of Dubliners. There are a lot of photos you can find online to see these fun colors. There are

a lot of theories about why the doors are so colorful. Roger shared with us our favorite......when the husband of Queen Victoria died, she ordered that everyone paint their doors black for mourning. Because there had been such a history between Ireland and England (particularly around religion) they refused and instead painted bright colors!

Other facts Roger shared with us on the drive: 65% of Ireland’s fruits and vegetables come from Dublin County. He also made sure we didn’t leave the tour without learning some true Irish words. Roger told us that there had recently been a census of how many Irish people knew the Irish language and it is thought that the majority of people said ‘yes’ they know the language. But in reality, most people only know ‘cupla focail’ (Pronounced Coopla fucklow) meaning ‘a couple words’. Another important phrase to remember? ‘uisce beatha’ (pronounced eesh-kabaha) means ‘the waters of life’ and refers to what else? Whiskey! 

Part of the monastery

The joke on the tour (to us) was that we were going to see the Wicklow ‘Mountains’…..because to Ireland they are, but to those of us already living at Mile High……3,000’ mountains aren’t much as far as altitude goes! After driving through the Wicklow Mountain National Park, we made our way to Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock) Monastic Settlement. Because it was Easter Sunday, traffic was very light and we made it in record time with lots of time to wander the settlement. Wicklow Mountains National Park stretches across almost 23,000 hectares south of Dublin. The largest of Ireland's National Parks, and the only one in the east. 

Glendalough Upper Lake

The monastery was founded in the 6th century by Saint Kevin. Most of the buildings that survive today date back to the 10th-12th century. There is a walking path at the settlement, so we walked our way out to the Glendalough Upper Lake and wandered the lake a bit. Across the way he pointed out where Saint Kevin 'hid' in a cave for years.

The lake has easy access to a parking lot, to allow for better hiking and tourist stops and in the parking lot there were food trucks with ice cream, burgers, etc. Roger said we wouldn’t have much time elsewhere for food, so we got a burger and then made our way back. Because we arrived so early with the traffic, we had to keep wandering the settlement until our set time to leave. Our next step had a specific arrival time and we couldn’t get there any earlier.

Once we got in the bus to keep going, we went through what’s called Sally Gap. For those of us that live in Colorado, it’s very reminiscent of a mountain pass with the Valley below. We stopped to take pictures and it was COLD AND WINDY. We made our way to the top, snapped the photo and then ran back to the bus!

Just a little wind

Our next stop was probably our favorite of the day – a sheepdog demonstration! Because Koda is part border collie, we thought it would be fun to watch the dogs in action – see how he’s supposed to act – ha! The dog we saw in action was named Maggie, she was so talented! The owner and trainer told us that they teach the dogs to learn both commands and whistles, and that each dog has different commands to learn. The whistles are for when the dogs are so far out that they can’t hear the words. The trainer showed us lots of variations of Maggie in action with her different whistles and words, then he gave her a break and let her rest. While she was resting, he brought out some border collie puppies that have not yet started training and some baby lambs! We were able to hold both of them – and you can imagine everyone fought over them.

While there, we learned that most of the wool you find in Ireland is actually not from Ireland, but New Zealand. He said the profit and ROI for the wool is so low that it doesn’t make sense to grow sheep for wool. Instead, they are now grown for meat. You would think hearing this would somehow make you not want to eat lamb, but we felt the opposite and kept looking for it on the menu!

When planning this trip, originally I had identified Kilkenny as a town that would be fun to stay in overnight. We quickly realized that we weren’t going to have time to do that, so instead we found this tour that had a stop in the town. Unfortunately, because it was Easter Sunday, and towards the end of the day, most everything in the town was closed. When we arrived, we were able to roam the grounds of the Kilkenny Castle and do some shopping on the main street, but that was about it. What was odd, we had so much time to kill at the monastic settlement, yet somehow at Kilkenny we had to be in and out in about an hour. Nevertheless, we were pretty wiped out anyway so were happy to get in the bus and head back to Dublin.

Kilkenny Castle

When we got back to the hotel, we changed and cleaned up and made our way to dinner. I had read about this restaurant called Bovinity online that had great reviews and happened to be close to our hotel. Not only was it about a 5 minute walk, but it was on Capel street. A happy coincidence, thisstreet is considered to be one of the ‘trendiest in the world’ right now and isa pedestrian only street. It’s home to a ton of great restaurants and shops and just had a fun energy when walking up and down it! We had a lovely dinner and then made our way home to bed!

Our next morning was our last in Dublin before heading out of town. For the past three days, we had walked by this cute restaurant right by our hotel called, Panem so decided to have breakfast there. Such a cute little café with tables outside on the street and in! We had a table outside to start but it was chilly and asked to be moved inside when we could – thank goodness for that! About five minutes after we moved inside, it started raining! By that point, we were already in our cozy table eating breakfast. After eating, we kept making our way down the main street (Ormond Quay Lower). I had read about a hot chocolate shop down the street called, The Sweetest Thing, that we thought we should visit. Who knew there were so many different types of hot chocolate?! From there, we slowly made our way back to the hotel – with time to kill. We found a mall in the middle of the street and wondered through the stores, I found a bookstore and of course I had to buy myself something to read, and then we got a drink at the hotel before calling it quits. From there, we called a cab and took ourselves to the Dublin train station…..it was time to meet up with our friends, Jonathan and Katie for the rest of the adventure!

Books, Bars.........and Engaged!

After getting a lot of sleep and feeling refreshed, we woke up early, had breakfast at the hotel and started our day. We had a tour planned for that morning, but took advantage of the quiet streets and sights, including walking through Temple Bar so we could get pictures without all of the people and chaos. We got a picture of THE Temple Bar; the whole area is smaller than I expected. This is the main bar district of Dublin. There is a joke that as the night gets going, the prices keep rising. We made a point to walk through the area but didn’t really feel the need to stop for an overpriced drink. Especially at 8am. 😊

From here, we walked to Trinity College for our tour. Emma, a student at the college, was our tour guide. We met near the bell tower of the College and started our tour. On the tower there are four statues of women representing the four higher faculties of the College – math, theology, law and medicine.

Bell Tower

Near the bell tower is the statue of George Salmon, a famous provost who said women would be admitted to Trinity over his dead body. The joke’s on him because shortly after death, the first women were admitted. Cheers!

Can you see the monkey?

Across the square is a brick building that has dorms in it. Allegedly, there is a murder that took place in one of the rooms – so everyone likes to pretend there are fun ghost stories to share.

From the square we went to the geology building. We were able to gain inside access to the building,
which is a benefit you get of the paid tour – versus doing your own free walking version. The architects of this building were known to always carve squirrels into their works. They also were famous for carving a monkey into a building when they weren’t paid on time……from the work we saw, sounds like someone missed a check!

Inside the building, there are 13 different types of stone native to Ireland that are used and can be seen. We didn’t take the time to identify all 13, but it was neat to see so many used in such a small space. In some of the stone you can see the shark’s teeth as a fossil.

Dark spots are the shark teeth

Also inside, a giant deer that has been extinct for 11,000 years. These bones are of a female deer which is rare. Often when bones of a female deer were discovered, they were thought to be a horse so just simply thrown away. This one was preserved.

Female Deer

The intricacy of the design is amazing. Holes in the wall were made to help with air flow but rumors started that it would also help with disease and protect you. People would often stick their hands in for that protection.

The Hole for air flow and 'protection'

After this building, we made our way around the rest of campus. We didn’t get into the business building, but we stopped to admire it because is very eco-friendly and carbon neutral. Here, Emma shared with us that the entire campus is working toward this goal of being carbon neutral. While we were stopped here, Emma shared with us that Erwin Schrodinger gave his famous speech for the firs time about ‘the cat’ on this campus. Why is this important? It probably isn’t to most of you. Except Bryan and I are both big fans of The Big Bang Theory TV show and it’s mentioned during the show. So when Emma brought it up, Bryan and I both looked at each other and started laughing – confusing the rest of our tour group.

After this, we had our timed entry into the Old Library,Long Room and Book of Kells…..the real reason I wanted to come on this tour. Books! Before entering the Long Room, you have a small museum that you can walk through that gives the history of the Library, the Book of Kells and other related pieces. I know we should, but that’s not really our cup of tea, so we buzzed through that area and went straight to the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the four gospels of the new testament – the real origins unknown but it is on display in the Library, with no photography allowed. The museum will rotate the pages from time to time so you can see different text or illustrations.

Once you see the Book of Kells, you are ushered into the main chamber of the Old Library, called the Long Room, this room is probably most synonymous with Trinity College and what you will see photos of when googling even the campus. It is 65 meters long. The library is in the process of being remodeled, so some of the books were starting to be removed but it was neat to see the process of the books being removed. Rather than the books being sorted by author or title, they are sorted by size, with the largest being on the bottom and smallest on top.

In the Long Room, there are marble busts throughout the room, all of men. In 2020, it was announced that the Library would commission four new busts (the first time new ones were commissioned in over 100 years) of women. The women are Rosalind Franklin, folklorist, dramatist and theatre-founder Lady Augusta Gregory, mathematician Ada Lovelace and writer and pioneering women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.

I had intended to call this day our ‘book and old bar day’ because of the itinerary. We were starting at the Old Library and making our way to some markets. I had read online about a series of Temple Bar markets –one for food, the other for books and the other for designers….so we made a plan to visit them. First, we stopped at the food market, which was a series of food trucks and farmers market style tents, here we got a quick snack and then kept on our way. What was interesting about these markets is they were not all in the same place, rather within a few blocks of each other and you had to go find them. Following the food market, we went to the book market and What. A. Bust. It was just two 10x10 pop up tents with some old books, cards, etc. I thought maybe since it was the day before Easter, that was the small supply – someone else will have to visit for me and let me know!

Old Bar #1 - Brazen Head

After the book portion of the day, we started the old bar tours. There is a bit of a competition between two bars in Ireland – one in Dublin, called the Brazen Head, and the other in Athlone, called Sean’s Bar. Both claim to be the oldest bar in Ireland….Sean’s Bar claims to be the oldest bar in the world…..and both are considered must see if you can do it. Geographically, it worked out well for us to walk from the Temple Bar markets to Brazen Head where we stopped for a beer. Following that, we were able to keep walking west and make our way to the train station – we had a 1:30pm train out of Dublin to the small town of Athlone – about a 90 minute train ride.

Early in our trip planning, I asked Bryan to google some things that he wanted to do in Ireland that I probably hadn’t come across yet. In his search, he found a list of old bars and Sean’s Bar in Athlone was one of them – allegedly oldest bar in the world. When we realized it was so close to Dublin, and you could get there by train, we thought we had to make it work….and as luck would have it, we had some time on this afternoon. When we arrived in Athlone, we took about a 15 minute walk through the town and found the bar – bright blue! Once you turn the corner, it’s hard to miss.

Old Bar #2 - Sean's Bar!

Allegedly wall from the OG Sean's Bar

We were there fairly early in the day, so it was easy to find us a spot at the bar and hang out. It was here that we made friends with the bartender, Clare, discovered some new beers we liked, and tried their own whiskey! Oh yeah, and we got engaged!! 😊

Here’s how it went down……we had been sitting at the bar for a couple of hours, drinking some beers, just hanging out. Bryan made a comment that the bar reminded him of where we met – Pub on Pearl – in Denver. I told him, yeah kind of, because Pub is it’s on dive-y bar. While we were having this conversation, a wedding party walked in to have a few drinks in between the ceremony and reception and they were off to the side of the bar, near where we were sitting. Bryan excuses himself to the bathroom and when he comes back, he starts chatting away with the wedding party. I just start laughing to myself saying he made friends and ditched me because they’re probably cooler. Turns out, he was chatting them up and told them that he had a ring in his pocket, and he was planning to propose! One of the guys asks ‘do you want me to video tape’, Bryan says ‘yeah, actually, I was hoping you would.’…..and there we have it. I saw the guy videotaping out of the corner of my eye, but I really wasn’t sure what was happening – I started laughing and crying I was so surprised! To this day, everyone asks if I knew he was going to propose – and while I had the tiniest suspicion, I truly had no clue it was going to go down the way it happened….true emotion in the video!

After that, our new friend Clare, the bartender, came up and gave Bryan a hard time ‘you were holding out on me!’ The rest of the guests in the bar congratulated us, bought us drinks, and helped us celebrate. When we were getting ready to head back to the train, Clare said she was getting off work and her boyfriend was coming to pick her up….she said – you guys deserve a ride! So, thank you to Clare and Andrew for helping us celebrate and the ride back to the train station! We spent the entire train ride back to Dublin calling family and friends to share the good news. As an extra token to commemorate the day, we bought a bottle of the whiskey they distill themselves at Sean’s Bar and will only open it on special occasions!

By the time we got back to Dublin, emotions were so high that we decided to wrap things up by having a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant….it had been a long and exciting day!! It's safe to say, our vote in the oldest bar matchup will be Sean's Bar - and we will always have a reason to go back!

Our bartender friend, Clare!