Travel
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Trip advice to Dublin
We are thinking about going to Dublin for 4-5 nights this spring. I have never been to Ireland. I am looking for some input on how people enjoyed it and what activities there are to do?
Re: Trip advice to Dublin
Dublin is great, but 2 nights was plenty for us. We rented a car and then drove southwest around the country to end our trip in Shannon. We enjoyed the other parts of Ireland much more than Dublin itself. There is so much to see you might look into more than just one city.
To answer your question, here is what we did during our visit to Dublin:
Day 1 - arrive in Dublin
Trinity College/Book of Kells/Long room
Chester Beatty Library
Christchurch Cathedral
Brazen Head pub
Day 2 - we used the hop on, hop off bus this day and it allowed us to get around and see a lot. The first stop was literally across the street from our hotel
St Patricks Cathedral
Guinness storehouse
Kilmainham Gaol (old jail - way cool)
Grafton Street
St. Stephen's Green
Temple Bar area
Dublin is fun, but it's not what you would consider an authentically Irish city. It's very cosmpolitan, with people from all over who live there. So while you'll see a lot (from history to pubs to breweries), I preferred driving around and seeing little towns.
When DH and I went, we visited Christchurch and St Pat's Cathedrals, and the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College. Our hotel was in the Hotel Bar area and we had some great food and beer there. When my parents went, they did a pub tour and just ate and drank their way through the city for a day or so.
Our little Irish rose came to us on March 5, 2010
Don't drink the water.
Disclaimer: I am not an MD. Please don't PM me with pregnancy-related questions. Ask your doctor.
We really enjoyed Dublin this summer. We liked the hop-on/hop-off bus because the tickets were good for 2 days, so we used it to get around, but also did the loop once just to orient ourselves. My favorite thing we visited was the Kilmainham Gaol (jail)...the tour was really interesting and so full of history/information. DH loved the Guinness Storehouse (for a non-drinker like myself I still found it interesting). I loved just wandering around and exploring too.
Here is how we broke down our time:
Day 1: arrived, checked in and then explored Trinity College (Book of Kells) and just wandered a little bit of downtown....we were exhausted, so we didn't do much else that day
Then we left Dublin and did some other parts of the country, but we returned to Dublin at the end:
Day 7: Took the train in from Galway (arrived around 11 am), took the hop-on/hop-off bus to Guinness factory and toured that. Then we took the bus tour around the full loop just to see what else there was to see. Spent some time in the evening in Temple Bar area.
Day 8: Took bus to Jail, toured St. Patrick's and Christchurch, tried to tour Dublin Castle, but it was closed due to some sort of event/ceremony, walked along the river and saw the Irish Famine Memorial, Ha'penny Bridge, etc
We had some awesome food especially at Gallagher's Boxty House (in Temple Bar) and Queen of Tarts (good for lunch...they have two locations). Also, I don't know if you need hotel info, but we stayed at the Schoolhouse Hotel, which is a little outside the city, but was really neat (it's an old school that was converted into a hotel) and super nice and clean. It's about a 5 minute walk to a hop-on/hop-off bus stop and the airport bus stops right in front of the hotel.
We loved it but it is a modern city. Think NYC with shorter, older buildings & everyone has a brouge.
We found lots to do & are going back because we couldn't do it all.
You should do the hop on hop off bus tour. We enjoyed the tour of St James' gate (the Guiness factory) & hope to do the Jamison distillery this time. Trinity College & the Book of Kells was interesting but not exactly what I expected. We saw a play at the Abby Theater. There are several museums & an ancient jail. Dublin Castle is beautiful. St Patricks Cathedral & Christ Church are worth a look if you like architecture. There is also a zoo if the weather is nice enough.
You can find food from all over the world & the Temple Bar area has great nightlife.
I'm planning a trip to Ireland myself and love this forum:
http://forum.virtualtourist.com/forum-217-1-Travel-Ireland-1-forum.html
The members are very helpful and they also have forums related to specific counties. I've also been reading the Frommer's Ireland guide which helps you to get a sense of each county.
We plan to fly into Dublin and stay a couple of days before renting a car and driving across the country.