Our first full day in Dublin

The weather is now starting to cool a little, 7° at 9AM, the forecast is for 12°, so we shall see.

Just across from the hotel is the start of one of the Hop on Hop off bus tours of Dublin, this is great, buy the tickets for €12, if I recall correctly, and you can get off and on anywhere on the 26 or so bus stops on the route. Today we got off at 3 stops.

First was Dublin Castle, it is strange to see a castle that is right in town with a host of other standard building and commercial shops around. The castle dates back some 800 years, and has gone thru a number of changes in that time. In fact it was a Viking fortress in the 930's (up until the visit to the castle I was not aware that the Vikings also invaded Ireland - England & Scotland yes, but not Ireland). So the site is/was in a strategic position beside two rivers and on high ground.

Dublin Castle from the courtyard

Following on with some advice by an attendant at a museum at Dublin Castle we did the short walk to the Chester Beatty Library, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty an American who settled in Ireland started collecting manuscripts as a hobby and then of course it just grew from there. On his death he bequeathed his collection of manuscripts, miniature paintings, prints, drawings, rare books and decorative arts to create the library. A fantastic library full of excellent artefacts and well presented.

Just as we left the library we got caught in a heavy shower, this was to be the first of many in Dublin over the next few days.

We then boarded the bus to go to the next venue which for me was to be the highlight of our brief trip to Dublin, The Guinness Storehouse. This is the original site of the brewery. Bloody fantastic, this is one venue where Win had to stop and keep waiting for me. On about level two as we worked our way thru the Guinness history, the making of "porter" or stout, whichis now known by the brewers name "Guinness", there were small samples of Guinness, I sampled three of these, just coz I could.

Sampling my second











We then journeyed up another couple of levels, where you can pull your own pint of Guinness, as part of the admission, which I chose to bypass. We headed for the Gravity Bar at the top level and quite a few flights of stairs. This is where I chose to redeem my free pint of Guinness.

Look closely, see the shamrock on the head of the Guinness, how good is the barmaid - oops can I say that. She does this for each and every Guinness pulled

The Gravity is well worth the climb as it has fantastic views over Dublin and beyond. We were there late in the afternoon, about 3ish, and the sun had decided to shine late in the day as well as some of the low cloud lifting, so we got to take advantage of this as we enjoyed a relax at the top of the storehouse.

Enjoying my "free" pint












Eventually, Win dragged me out and we headed down and out in time to get the last bus back to town, a fantastic first full day in Dublin.

And what do you know another Irish pub dinner that night