Part one – Dublin
Part two – Leenane
Part three – Doolin and home
Hi everyone! So sorry I have neglected posting lately. Much going on. I promise to start posting more often. Meanwhile, we had a nice 2+ week trip to Ireland. I hope you enjoy my report.
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Wednesday, September 11.
We said goodbye to our house and cat sitters and took off for the Bologna airport. As usual we arrived and checked in and went to our favorite restaurant for a good lunch. The Ryan Air flight was direct to Dublin and took 2.5 hours.
It was 8:30 by the time we got out of the airport. So when we arrived at our hotel (The Mont) we immediately dropped our suitcase and met Cindy and Bill for a latish dinner at Kennedy’s Pub, only 2 minutes from the hotel. Most kitchens close at nine but this one was open until eleven.
There was a live trio playing Irish music. We ordered and ate but it was not the best pub food I’ve had. Nevertheless, we got fed after a long day for us all.
Thursday, September 12
We had opted for the hotel breakfast at €20 a person. Error, error. Just sub par and not worth the money. It was ok. We never went back. We headed out for a walkabout. It was a pretty nice day. Brisk and partly sunny. We visited the shopping streets on the far side of the river. We walked over and took pictures of the pretty white foot bridge. We checked out the really nice Marks and Spencer. We photographed the Temple Bar neighborhood. Very pretty with a lot of flowers on the buildings. The Temple Bar itself is said to have the most expensive Guinness in all of Ireland.
There was a cool butcher shop with mosaics of the animals and a very friendly butcher inside. It was a lot of fun just meandering and soaking it all in.
We went onto the Trinity College campus which was very pretty. Lots of people on the lawns and benches soaking up the sun. We had a beer in the Campus pub and then went through a secret gate to a pub we chose called the Lincoln’s Inn. They had things like traditional Irish stew with lamb and some nice wraps. We had dinner reservations in a nice place so didn’t want to eat too much.
Dinner was good but not exceptional. Very close to our hotel. Called Note. We enjoyed some burgundy wines. I had a zucchini starter and a risotto with black kale and Nori. Luther had Monkfish. He liked that. The risotto was bland. My zucchini starter was great.
Friday, September 13
Big day of walking. We started with what in my mind was an amazing breakfast. A place called Tang. Middle eastern food and amazing breakfasts. I had Shakshuka. Two eggs in a spicy tomato-y, red pepper-y sauce with all kinds of great middle eastern spices and nuts. Wow. So good. The others got the fried eggs on toast which also had middle eastern flavors.
Thoroughly fortified we took off for a tour of the Marsh’s Library and the Cathedral. It was about half an hour walk. Along the route was a trip through St. Stephen’s Green, the largest of the parks opened to the public in 1880.
In the library there were stacks of old books. I love old books. These were very old. Think Gutenberg. There were several collections from several people who had bequeathed or sold them to the library. Then we went next door to the Cathedral. But we were turned away as there was a private service. We were told to return after 1:30 but that was not convenient.
We then walked up to Christ Church Cathedral. There was also a Dublin museum which concentrated on history starting with the Vikings. It was pretty interesting. We then went down the street to The Christ Church pub. We had salads because that breakfast was still sticking with us. We hung around a long time because we were killing time before our Whiskey Tour of Roe & Co. While at the pub we chatted with the window washer. We could all understand just about half of what he was saying. He was very nice though, and friendly.
We headed off to our tour, arriving right on time. There were about twelve people on the tour. All Americans. The tour was a lot of fun. The building was once an electric power plant which was abandoned. It was bought by Roe in 2017 so this is a pretty young operation. We saw the huge malting vats and the stills which pump out 2 pints a second of distilled whiskey.
Next we all sat around a big pear shaped table and we had fun first tasting the whiskey and then the corn which was cask strength. Then we got to blend our own whiskey using ratios we chose. For instance, I liked the corn alcohol so used a 65% to 35% mix for mine. It was pretty good. Then they had some things we could add that would transform the whiskey we made to a cocktail, think, Manhattan. Then we went to the bar and finished our drinks. It was fun.
Dinner was in a place called Spitalfields. It was a gastronomic pub. It was in a pretty far away neighborhood and our cab driver had trouble finding it. We had a very nice dinner. Not fancy. Loud and happy place. Luther and I shared a trout appetizer and we had schnitzels. Yeah, a little weird in Ireland…but hey! It was the best schnitzel I ever had in Ireland.
Part one – Dublin
Part two – Leenane
Part three – Doolin and home
Hi Carlo, for the shopping part the first day we had read about that district. Found Roe & Co online when googling whisky tours. We used trip advisor for the hotel and Google for some of the restaurants. I googled gastropub for Spitalfields
Sounds like a nice tour of downtown Dublin. What did you use as a guide to find places to visit and places to eat and sleep? I’ve never heard of Roe & Co. How did you find it? Thank you.
Hi Liz, I bet the weather accounts for their complexions. So pure and white and SO many redheads! Stay tuned for parts two and three.
Thanks James! It is a lovely land. Weather can be challenging. The people there said they had no summer this year. The two weeks of sun we had, they described as their summer.
You brought back some great memories for me. I love Ireland. When I was there, there was a very, very, fine drizzle most of the time. I never really got wet??? I wonder if that lovely mist is the reason for the beautiful Irish skin. Happy to hear you had a good time.
Bentornati Nancy e Luther! Great blog post Nancy! Virginia and I definitely need to get to Ireland one of these days. Love the pics. Can’t wait for more posts!
Hi Lindsay, Roe & Co, the distillery, is directly across the street from the Guinness storehouse which is Irelands top tourist attraction. As I said, Roe is a pretty new operation. We had two full days there and did as much as we could. My first time there. So lucky with the weather.
Hi Phil, we lucked out on the weather for the whole 2 weeks. One day of rain. Majority were sunny and low 20s. As for the risotto, it was fine but not notable.
Well, Dublin is looking good and you certainly packed a lot in. The distillery visit looked like a great day out, no idea it was there.
Only an Italian would order risotto in Dublin I have made quite a few visits and it was always raining.
Hi Shirley, didn’t see that anywhere we ate. We didn’t visit the Guinness storehouse. I am not a Guinness fan, but I bet the mousse was amazing.
Hi Matt, we really lucked out with the weather. Everywhere we went they thanked us for bringing the good weather. Last day which was our flight day, was vile.
I hope you had the chance to try the Chocolate Mousse made with Guinesses. I remember it and it was amazing.
Glad to read your posts again! Loved the part about the distillery – my kind of place! About 10 years ago I taught a pleinair workshop in southeast Ireland. Spent only a day in Dublin. Weather was horrible. Ask me if I’d rather be in Italy . . .