Another reason I think Jacklyn and I travel well together is our shared hatred of guided or audio tours, so a majority of our trip was composed of days we explored the city on our own. Of course, our self guided tours were based around recommendations of others, and sometimes (maybe only once) we would google the history behind certain landmarks to educate ourselves.
Naturally, our self guided tours of Dublin revolved around alcohol. Our first stop after our red eye flight was to explore the Temple Bar area. We were shocked to find out that even in October, Temple Bar was ready for Christmas.
We spent our first night listening to live music at the Quays, and frequented some other bars pictured throughout the remainder of our trip.
In between bars, we walked through Christ Church Cathedral, which was originally founded by the Vikings in 1030.
We stopped by St. Andrew’s Cathedral and said hi to Molly Malone.
We toured yet another cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
We walked along the River Liffey that divides the city into northern and southern regions.
We walked across the Samuel Beckett Bridge pictured here, which was designed in the shape of an harp. Ireland is the only country in the world known to have a musical instrument as an emblem.
Guinness, of course, also has the harp as an emblem however the Guinness harp is backwards. The Guinness tour attributes this to copyright concerns, but other sources say that it symbolizes Guinness’s history of opposing Irish independence.
The Guinness tour was a great way to end our first day of being in Ireland. It featured the beautiful displays above and focused a lot on the production and ~process engineering~ of Guinness itself. The tour itself was self led, which resulted in me sending Drew videos and asking for the summary of each display.
While we may not have retained much information from the tour, we did achieve what we set out to accomplish- having our faces printed on a glass of Guinness.
Just as we had to start our trip with a Guinness tour, it only felt right to conclude it with a Jameson tour. Also similar to our experience on the Guinness tour, our distaste for Jameson was also reaffirmed. This tour, however, was more interactive, teaching us whiskey tasting techniques. We learned that the slower the “legs” of the whiskey are, the older, thicker, and usually richer the taste.
Food and Drinks
A friend of mine (and Tik Tok) recommended Darkey Kelly’s to us for a traditional irish meal and some traditional irish music to accompany it. Jacklyn and I enjoyed Beef and Guinness Stew and Pot Roast with Yorkshire Pudding on the side.
This same friend recommended a less traditional location for breakfast- Bread 41. We enjoyed the familiarity of this cafe as our trip came to an end.
About Abroad 