Dublin In 3 Days

On Thursday afternoon, Michael and I flew out to Dublin on our first ever adventure together.  We had no idea what to expect and had no real plans! The only plan we really had was to explore and see as much as we could!

We started off our adventure at the airport with these monstrous burgers!
We had lunch at Giraffe and it was delicious as always.

Adios Birmingham!

The flight was only 40 minutes long so it was quite entertaining to watch the stewards and stewardesses running around with in-flight magazines and tea and coffee for the very brief duration. Upon arrival we very quickly and easily found ourselves a taxi to take us to our hotel. 

The taxi driver was so chatty and made us feel instantly comfortable and gave us tonnes of advice about getting around Dublin and good places to eat (one pub of which we spent a lot of time in!)- thanks Karl! 

 Its fair to say we were pretty amazed by our hotel.

Clontarf Castle was everything we imagined and more. The whole hotel was breathtaking and the room was clean and incredibly comfy. When we arrived at our room we were shocked to find that our room was much bigger than I'd booked, as it turned out our room had been upgraded! We weren't complaining. 

After we settled in we decided to take a walk down the a pub that had been recommended to us that wasn't too far away. The Yacht quickly became one of our favourite places in Dublin, the staff were so lovely and jolly and the food looked amazing (we later found out, it was as amazing as it looked!)

We ordered ourselves some desserts and cocktails and finally began to relax after a day of travelling. 

The next morning we decided to treat ourselves by ordering breakfast in bed- oops! We were on holiday! 

We ordered two continental breakfasts and before we knew it toast, cereal, yoghurt, juice, fresh pastries and tea and coffee were delivered to our door. 

Room service in a castle does make you feel a little bit royal! Although we did feel like the common people most of the time. 

Once we had rested our aching stomachs from breakfast we took a little walk down to the coast and walked along the sea to the bus stop. The locals were so friendly and helped us out with getting to the city centre- I guess that's one problem with leaving everything to exploration is that you have no idea what you're doing. 

We took the 15 minute bus into the city and that's where our crazy day of exploring began.

Ruining photos since 1998.

We went straight to the nearest tourist office where a very nice man explained how everything worked in Dublin. As students the Hop-on/Hop-off bus tour tickets were incredibly affordable and were perfect for our two days of exploring.
We found the nearest bus stop and hopped on! The route took us all around the city and showed us all of the top places to visit.

One of the first things we did was take a stroll around Trinity College.
Its a very lovely place to have a browse! 

 We took the bus to Kilmainham Gaol which we heard was a very interesting place to visit. We quickly realised that we were going to be queuing for a very long time and decided that we'd go back early the next morning when we had time to be in queues. Friday was a day for exploring! 

We had a swift walk through the IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) on our way to find lunch! 

We eventually came to a little square of restaurants next to the Jameson's Whiskey Factory (its easy to find your way around Dublin using alcoholic beverage manufacturers as checkpoints!). We stopped off for a quick lunch before heading on.

Our next stop was City Hall, this building is incredible and there is a free exhibition downstairs which tells you all about the history of Ireland. It was good to get a little bit of background knowledge. 

We then walked around the city in an attempt to find Dublin Castle which we had passed earlier on in the day- you'd think a castle would be pretty easy to find, right?

We eventually stumbled across it and found out that with student rates, the tours were again very affordable!

These are only a few photos that we took. The building itself is magnificent and there's something about the tall ceilings and detailed paintings that make you wonder how it was built and who were the talented people involved?!

After our tour of the castle, we wandered around the city for the rest of the afternoon. We enjoyed a free Irish coffee that came with our bus ticket at O'Sullivan's bar, I've never had one before and it was delicious!
As it began to get dark we caught a cab back to The Yacht where we enjoyed yet more drinks.

The next morning we got up, packed and left before breakfast to try and get a good place in the queue at Kilmainham Gaol. We arrived around 10:30am and the queue was already half way down the street! Luckily there was a little café across the road where I managed to get us some breakfast bagels and coffee for the queue. When we finally entered we browsed the museum before our tour around the gaol.

I would highly recommend taking a tour around this amazing building, there are so many haunting and heart breaking stories of the people and history of the time. It's almost as if in 1926 the guards just walked out and locked the doors. The cells and corridors are exactly as they would've been when the gaol was in use, pretty creepy really.

Fun fact- this is where The Italian Job was filmed! 

We left the gaol silent and thoughtful before grabbing a cab to our final destination of our trip. 

Here's me pretending to enjoy the taste of beer- bleugh.

When you reach the 7th floor you are presented with a free
pint of Guinness to sip as you look over Dublin in the
Gravity Bar.

The Guinness Storehouse is one of Ireland's most popular tourist destinations. It consists of 7 floors of history, science and secrets behind the oh so popular pint of Guinness. 

We pulled our own pints and explored how Guinness is made and the advertising over the years. 

There are several restaurants and cafés throughout the giant pint glass shaped building, one of which was playing live music as we passed by it! 

By this point in the trip we were exhausted and pretty down heartened by the fact that our flight home was only a few hours away, it was at this point we decided to take the bus back to one of our favourite places in Dublin, you can probably guess where that is! 

Our final meal was a very, very good one.
Steaks with fried onions, mushrooms and lots of chips (which were yet to arrive when I took the photo)

We had some of these on the first night and couldn't help ourselves despite our fullness.
Michael couldn't wait and made that one fall over by shoving his spoon in before I had chance to take the photo. 

We had a genuinely amazing time away and I would highly recommend Dublin to anyone who wants to start off lightly with their travelling endeavours. 

Despite it being a little pricey as it is a capital city, there are ways to cut the costs which I will do a blog post on soon. 

To see what we got up to in more detail check out my vlog which I will be uploading soon, subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep an eye out for my latest uploads! 

'til next time

Hannah ox