Baile Átha Cliath

 

If you think I am talking gibberish here, you are mistaken. The words in my title is the Irish name for Dublin, the capital of Ireland. When we traveled to Turkey in the summer of 2018, we had a stopover in Dublin where we changed airlines. We arrived from San Francisco with Aer Lingus (one of our prefered airlines to travel with) and continued the next day with Turkish Airlines. In between we had less than 24 hours in this city on the River Liffey at Dublin Bay.

The Geek had booked a hotel for us just to cancel that reservation shortly before we left in order to book a different one - Stauntons on the Green. This is a fairly expensive hotel, but since it was being  renovated at that time and had scaffolding on the outside, we got a very steep discount. It is right in the center of the city with just a few minutes to walk to downtown and some of the attractions we wanted to see. The hotel itself was fabulous, the staff extremely friendly and we didn't hear anything of the ongoing construction.

From the airport we took the Airlink (bus) which stopped two minutes from the hotel - perfect. We checked in, changed and took off. Like every major city in Europe, Dublin has excellent public transportation, but since we were already right in the city, we didn't need it.

We passed by famous Trinity College. Somehow I hadn't imagined it right at a busy street.

The city was busy and bustling with people, many of them without doubt tourists. It was a lively place with many shops and cobblestone on the ground.

Of course I had to go into the Aran Sweater Market! One day I'm going to knit a sweater like that, either for me or for Kaefer.

It was June and some of the shops were celebrating Pride. The entire city was decked out with rainbows, celebrating Pride - in a deeply Catholic country where same-sex marriage has been legal since November 2015. Sweet stuff also seemed to be very popular with shops.

This being Ireland there had to be a whiskey museum.

And the Wacky Woollies made some wonderful souvenirs (yes, there are a few in our home now...)

We stopped at the popular Temple Bar, but didn't go in. I liked all the flowers at the buildings.

Kaefer wanted to go to Ha'penny Bridge, a cast iron pedestrian bridge that crosses the River Liffey. All of us really liked this place.

I saw many beautiful street lights throughout the city. 

Beautiful decoration on buildings - and of course everybody knows Riverdance!

Eventually we were hungry and stopped at Lotts for dinner. Each of us ordered something different so that we could taste some of the Irish cuisine. Clockwise from top left: absolutely delicious dark whole grain bread, Irish beef stew, fish & chips and Dublin Coddle.

We also wanted to try something other than Guiness and ordered two beers of Galway Hooker. It was a bit too bitter for my taste, however, I loved the name (that was the reason why I ordered this one). This hooker is my ticket for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday. I don't think that a hooker often stops there... 

We did go to bed soon after our dinner, we were so tired, and still had another six-hour flight the following day. In the morning we got a delicious breakfast in our hotel. One part of it was this heavenly smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. 

Come back next week when we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of T Tuesday!