Dublin and Galway at Easter (Part 1)
Over Christmas Rob and I asked Jennifer whether she had plans for Easter....she didn't and she had apparently been considering trips to Italy or Ireland.
For some reason we chose Ireland (in hindsight given the weather Italy might have been the more obvious choice) and so here we go again :)
Maundy Thursday
We took the day off work and sorted out all the important things.....dog to kennels, clean house, go out for lunch.
Eventually we got packing our bags - we were flying with Ryanair and weren't sure that our bags met the size limits and as we were taking the car we popped a few options in there in case we needed to repack to avoid their fee!
We left for Bristol airport at around 5 and had an easy drive. We got there and parked, then walked to the terminal. We hunted around for a Ryanair bag measurer but couldn't find one - we decided to risk it and went through security.
There was no line and we were through in seconds. We went to get dinner in the restaurant as we had plenty of time before our flight.
Dinner over and we were going to do a little bit of wandering around the shops but just as we were going they announced our gate.
We headed over because we wanted to get seats together. We got there and had our bag (it fit!!) and boarding passes checked before being made to queue in a tiny room for ages. It turned out that the plane hadn't even arrived yet :(
The plane eventually arrived, we finally boarded and were on our way. We were due to arrive in Dublin at the same time as Jennifer but we departed late and then had to get a bus from the plane to the terminal.
Jennifer had arrived on time and was waiting in arrivals for us.
It was about 10.45pm by now so we grabbed a taxi instead of hunting for the shuttle to the hotel.
Wow was that a journey - we must have had the grumpiest taxi driver ever.....he was obnoxious and yelling at cars in front of him. We did however arrive at our hotel quickly!
We checked in and headed off to bed. Off to Dublin to explore in the morning.
Good Friday
We met Jennifer for breakfast and then checked out of the hotel. We went back to the airport to pick up a hire car for our trip. From there we headed to our hotel The Beacon to park the car before heading into Dublin.
We got to the hotel around 10am and surprisingly they had rooms ready for us and so we checked in and dumped our stuff.
The hotel was nice enough but there were some odd decorations:
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| Odd chair in the corridor! |
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| This is the lift!! |
We wandered around for a little while and took some photos and then when we were done we went in search of the tram again to find our way to Kilmainham Gaol.
We grabbed a subway whilst we were wandering and then eventually we stopped in a partially open shopping centre to eat them as we seemed to get a little bit lost. (I've named it the Lizzi tour).
Lunch eaten we eventually made it to the tram. We weren't exactly sure which stop we needed but eventually found the correct stop and headed in the direction of the Gaol.
We got there around 2pm and managed to get tickets for the 4pm tour and then headed to the tea room to get a drink and cake to warm up. Oh yeah did I mention that it had been extremely cold?!
There is a lot of history regarding the Gaol but I am lazy so if you are interested go find Jennifer's blog on the subject or alternatively use our friend google :)
Kilmainham gaol was in use between 1796 and 1924. It is mostly known for housing political prisoners during the Irish rebellion but actually housed far more 'normal' prisoners.
Once we were finished with the gaol we headed back over to the tram.
An extra stop on the Lizzi tour meant we got off the tram a little earlier than we needed to....which meant a longer walk back to the city centre than expected :)
We went in search of a place to eat dinner and found an Italian that we liked the look of. Rob and I had pizza whilst Jennifer had a pasta dish.
After dinner we took the tram back to the hotel. We decided that the following day we would go check out the nearby town of Dalkey which had a castle that looked interesting.
Holy Saturday
We got up and headed down to breakfast. The slightly odd decoration extended to the restaurant:
Breakfast finished and a few muffins for the road and we were off to Dalkey.
We put the address into the sat nav and off we went.
The trip to Dalkey was quite straightforward but we had a little problem finding the castle. Turned out it was a little smaller than we had expected.
The castle opened at 11 and we bought tickets for the first tour. I think it is safe to say the tour wasn't quite what we were expecting.
There were some performers on the tour and there was an expectation of audience participation.....! When we had arrived there were only the 3 of us. Luckily we had been joined by another group of 3 from Chicago.
We were taken into the church (pictured above) and were greeted by a man. Jennifer was then asked to join him in an Irish dance (it pains me that I didn't have the camera out at the time!)
We all then had to do the same dance.....no camera here either!
We headed back into the building and walked under the 'murder hole'
We then arrived in a room where it was Rob's turn to take part. I can't even remember what he was subjected to but it was soooo funny!
After this we were joined by a man playing the part of an archer. He was a little less strange thankfully and he took us up onto the top of the castle.
We headed back down into the little room and got to the end of the tour.
So, quite possibly the oddest tour I have ever been on.
We decided to have a little walk around Dalkey before heading off to Galway. We could see water from the roof of the castle and so headed toward the harbour.
After taking quite a few piccy's we headed back to town. We stopped in a coffee shop to get a drink and a snack before starting our journey to Galway.
Rest of the trip to follow later.
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