About Erika: Week 12 #1: Dublin in my heart

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Week 12 #1: Dublin in my heart

So, this is the first entry of a very busy week. As some of you might know already I was in Dublin yesterday. It started very early with me getting up at 05:30, catching a train to meet up with Polina in West End (crossing that off my list) and getting to the airport.
We landed in Dublin around 10 am, and asked which bus would take us to the city center, and the man in the help desk was very nice, but he also managed to scare the life out of me by saying that if we took a certain bus, we would miss the flight. And I can't ever let that happen...
We found our way into city center and to our hotel, My Place, which is highly recommendable. Since we couldn't check in before 2 pm we decided to go get something to eat, and then explore until we could check in.
We hit O'Connell street after a little getting lost, and found something to eat. It decided to start raining while we were eating, but we were planning our day anyway, so it didn't matter. Spirits lifted and the rain gone, we set out for adventures.

We crossed river Liffey, took a couple of selfies with my selfiestick (I cannot believe I just wrote that), and received a lot of awkward stares and the occasional obvious "selfie" comment. However, we did manage to get good pictures, so all the comments were put to shame.

Firstly, we set off for Christ Church Cathedral, which is a very beautiful cathedral from the outside, we didn't go in. Next on the list was Dublin Castle, but we ended up going for St. Patrick's Cathedral, and on the way out from Christ Church Cathedral I just basically yell: "I know this place!"

Five years ago I was in Dublin, but back then I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going because my parents knew where they were going, and I just followed, but being back somewhere I knew where was, that was a funny feeling. Obviously it wasn't difficult to find St. Patrick's Cathedral after that because my feet knew the general direction to go in, and there it was.
We took a couple of pictures, luckily here, other people had chosen to use their selfiestick as well, so we were very happy.

After St. Patrick's Cathedral we went for the castle, and we practiced the tactic "go as far as you can before you get stopped". That was approximately across the courtyard and no further, so we turned around and decided we couldn't be bothered.

We were then looking for St. Steven's Gardens, but also a really nice and cosy cafe to sit down. We found the cafe before we found the gardens, and as we were both tired we ended up having an extended rest before we set out again. If you want a nice place to sit down and just relax, go to Accents!

The weather had cleared up further, and on the way to the gardens the sun actually started shining, so we walked around the gardens and a bit around the national galleries area until we ended up on Grafton Street.

Here we strolled the length of it before we set direction for the other side of Liffey, back towards the hotel. We checked in at the hotel at 6:15 pm, rested up for 45 minutes before we set out for dinner.

We ended up going up and down O'Connell Street at least 6 times in pursuit of dinner. O'Connell Street is Dublin's main thoroughfare, whereas Grafton Street is the place you want to go if you want to shop. Temple Bar is a very atmospheric area of the town that definitely deserves a visit, too! All in all we only walked some 21 km.