Hello friends,
Today's post is all about Dublin. I just returned from Ireland not too long ago, so everything is still fresh in my mind.
I would definitely recommend a trip to Ireland if you happen to be in the UK or as the only vacation destination. I found Ireland to be very cute, especially their Irish pride. It is exactly what you would expect in that respect: lots of Guinness drinking, wearing green, white and orange and pub going (or maybe that's because I went during St. Patrick's Day weekend).
I went to Ireland with a tour group that departed from London Hatton Cross Station in the evening. The journey to Ireland took the whole evening and some of the morning (left London at 6:30pm and arrived in Dublin at 9:30am). Expect long travel if you are traveling by land. It is doable, but you will be tired!
If you'd like some more information on the tour company, check out
UK Study Tours. They do lots of weekend trips, and even some quick day trips to Oxford and Cambridge. The tours aren't just restricted to the UK, but they also travel to Europe (Paris, Amsterdam, etc).
Day 1 was spent in Dublin. Upon arrival in Dublin, we stopped for a quick breakfast and on to the walking tour we went!
The first stop was O'Connel Street:
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| The Spire |
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| Clerys |
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| Dublin Bus Headquarters |
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| Statue of Sir John Gray |
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| O'Connel Monument |
Trinity College
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| Trinity College, statue of Oliver Goldsmith |
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| Parliament Square |
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| The Campanile of Trinity College |
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| "Sfera con Sfera", Sphere with in a sphere, Pomodoro Spehere |
Other Sights:
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| St. Patrick's Cathedral |
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| Outside of Dublin City Hall |
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| Dublin Castle |
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| Inside Dublin Castle |
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| John's Lane Church |
Dublin at Night
For St. Patrick's weekend celebrations, the whole city was lit up with green lights.
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| Ha'penny Bridge |
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| O'Connel Street |
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| Clerys |
Dublin is doable in a day for sights and a bit of shopping. If you wanted to do more in depth sightseeing (taking a separate tour of Trinity College for example, and seeing the book of Kells, other Dublin Museums, and the Guinness brewery tour), you may need and day and a half, as the ques can be long.
Returning back to London took one day. Wake up call was at 5:00, as we needed to be in the coach for the 5:45 departure from the hotel. It was about and hours drive to the port of Dublin where we caught a ferry back to the port of Hollyhead, Wales. The ferry was roughly 3 hours, we arrived in Hollyhead at noon. Traveling back into London by coach took some time, roughly 6 hours (with stops) to Oxford, then all the groups split up to go back to their original starting points (London, Brighton, Bournemouth).
As for the tour, I would like to try one of their day trips to Oxford. I never felt like I was rushed when on the tour, and we were able to have a very decent amount of free time in Dublin. Accommodations at the Killeshin Hotel were nice and spacious (you had to share a room with either one or two other people). The only thing that was tough was the amount of traveling. It was very long and tiring, but by land, there is no easier way.
In the following post, I'll show you where I went on Day two of the tour!
xChelsx
