Unfortunatly Friday was our last day and we got back into city center for some final shopping. I wanted to have some celtic jewelry and I found some in Temple Bar to my absolut surprise.

Finally we had to get to the airport and after we checked in it started to rain. Due to the rain we took off later and when we landed in Frankfurt we had to face a thunder-storm which made our landing quite uncomfortable.

As for Dublin I can generally say if you have been there once it’s fine, but I feel no need to get back to the city itself again. It’s really like any other capital I have seen so far and has not the flair of the rest of the country. Compared to the trip in 2005 where I travelled the western coast Dublin is clearly the looser…..

For Thursday we expected rain, so we had already planned to see some museums and the Jameson Distilleries on that day. First stop should be Kilmainham Jail, the prison where in 1918 the last revolutionists have been executed and where a lot of sentences of death have been fullfilled.

To find the way from the bus station was quite more difficult than I had expected as we didn’t see any signs leading us to it. There is no possibility to walk through Kilmainham Jail by oneself, so we had to join a guide that looked as I have always thought a typical professor would look like. He explained a lot about the history of the prison and the Irish fight for independence. At the beginning they mainly practised the beheading after the prisoners had been hung and this was done under the eyes of the public as determent. From the start of the 20th century they finally stopped that at least and the prisoners were mainly shot, whereas they were 10 soldiers shooting one person so that none of those should have the feeling he was giving the deadly shot. Kilmainham Jail has as well been a place were a lot of movies have been filmed (e.g. In the name of the father, Michael Collins, Italian Job) which can easily be explained by the impressive interior of the prison. We paid 5 euros for a one hour guidance and that was more than okay and is every cent worth it.

We headed back in the city by bus to see Jameson. I have never been in a distillery so far, even if I really prefer whiskey if it comes to stronger alcohol. Here we had to join a guide as well and the tour was really interessting. The actual distillery is in Cork nowadays and they only use the building in Dublin for museum purposes. The tour ended with a whiskey tasting and afterwards we walked through the tiny shop inside. We took some smaller bottles of whiskey with us which were all a different age.. A normal sized bottle costs about 38 Euros or more. In general I figured out that the whiskey can be bought cheaper in Germany than in Ireland. Interesting would have been the different rare version they offered, which normally were about 100 Euros or more.

From Jameson we decided to skip the Guiness Brewery and go shopping instead and when we returned to our B [&] B I had to clarify if we could leave our luggage in the B [&] B for the next day and get it on the way to the airport, so that we would still have some time in the city on Friday. Joseph [&] Liz were more than helpfull and it turned out to be absolutely no problem.

We returned to city center for a pub again. This time Kennedy’s which was nearly deserted compared to any other pub I had visited in that week. The only other visitors in the pub were all Irish, so that it was pretty much fun anyways.

Wednesday would be my favorite day when I look back on that trip nowadays. We started for a trip to Howth which can be easily reached by bus. We jumped of the bus at Howth Summit and started with the Cliff Walk. We headed North first until the road was blocked suddenly and we had to turn around a take the southern route. We had extremely good weather and the view from the cliffs was perfect. Due to my wish to get as near to the water as possible I sometimes could feel a hand grabbing me from behind and telling me I would get beaten up if I’d go any nearer to the edging and so I didn’t start to climb down at some parts. I am still quite sure it would have been possible. As always when I get sun and water at the same time I burned my skin and as there is absolutely no tree that would spend some shadow during that route we were quite thirsty and exhausted when we reached Howth (town). Here we visited Cafe Caira at East Pier where we had fish and chips. I have to admit this has been the one and only time I really loved this. The fish was directly out of the water and the chips were handcut, absolutely delicious.

We left Howth with the Dart (which pointed out to be a normal train). The Dart departs every 10 min from Howth to Dublin and is much faster than the bus. We ended up at Conolly station and I had again overestimated my abilities to find my way from there to O’Connell Bridge. We got help from a nice Dubliner again and so we finally reached Trinity College where I wanted to have a closer look this time. I must admit that I was some kind of envious when I walked through that College and compared it to my university. I guess it is really fun to study there. They have fantastic sports facilities and I had the impression that most of the students were sitting outside in the sun or playing tennis or rugby.

Perfect day for me with lot’s of sun, water and fresh air….

Tuesday morning we got up really soon as I still wanted to get to the tourist information to book a trip to the Wicklow Mountains. My mobile started to ring at 7.00 a.m, which normally should be forbidden during holidays…

Before we got anywhere we faced Liz‘ breakfast. The breakfast in the ABC Guesthouse is perfect and the coffee was really good. We could choose between Irish and Continental and the Continental had really everything you could wish for.

After the experience from Monday we took the bus to O’Connell Bridge, which is nearly the opposite of Trinity College. No chance to miss that. We were extremely lucky when the guy in the Tourist Info told us that a bus would start to the Wicklow Mountains in 30 minutes and we could get in that if we wanted to. We booked that trip and went to the bus station where our guide picked us up. Here name was Niamh and I was enchanted as I had just finished a book where this was the name of the main character and I thought (at that time) that the name wasn’t a common name in any country. Niamh was so nice to tell us during the trip that her name was a pagan name and that in Ireland nowadays it is only allowed to baptise a child with a pagan name when it is given a christian one as seccond name, so that most girls / women with the name Niamh have Mary as second name. She told us a lot of the history and old traditions during our trip to the Wicklow Mountains where we were finally allowed to leave the bus. The Wicklow Mountains were quite impressive for me at this time of the year as the whole ground was covered with heather and I found this extremely beautiful.

From Wicklow Gap we drove to Glendalough, which pointed out to be some ancient religious site. A huge tower is standing there which is about 30 meters high (at least I believe this is what was told to us). In the ancient times there used to be a church and a priest’s house as well but those are merely ruins now. Glendalough translated means City at two seas and so there are two sees which we surounded during the time we were allowed to spend there. Niamh told us that the legends tell about a sea monster living in one of them which is the reason for a prohibition to bath in the seas…

From Glendalough we drove to Alvoca. This is where one of the oldest irish weaving mills is situated and it was quite impressive to see those looms in action. In the weaving mill there is a cafe as well where we had an absolute phantastic tomato soup and they have a store where they sell products that have been made in the mill.

We reached Dublin at 6.00 p.m again and so I still had time to take some photos in Temple Bar before we ended up in a pub again

On Monday morning we had to get up at 6.00 am to get to the airport, so I was standing in front of the check in counter quite tired … and then it happend. I don’t know if anybody else is having this experience with travelling over and over again. I certainly do so….there was a family in front of me, a huge one…that had obviously not read the instructions provided by Ryan Air. Travelling with Ryan air means that you have a limit of one bag for check in and one hand luggage and there are limits for weight and size of both. That family had a lot of more luggage than allowed and the woman at the counter told them they had to pay for that additionally. An argument was starting (I was thinking of coffee in the lounge) and the argument took nearly 30 minutes until daddy got to the cash automat and got the money to pay the additional luggage…..

The flight itself was a little turbulent but we reached Dublin safe and sound and departed the airplane for the luggage. In Dublin Airport this is a little round the world trip if you land in Terminal A.

We had originally planned to get to Dublin by bus (from the airport) and did this with a 90 min ticket which we could by via an automat. After some bus stops I already knew what the problem in Dublin would be. There is no record of the bus stations so you never know exactly where you are at the moment and when the station you want to leave is coming. Most stations have names, but not all of them and they are not displayed in the bus. So it is pretty hard to figure out when you have to leave the bus. I asked an Irish sitting next to me and his explanation was quite simple. Tell the bus driver where you wan to get out and he will call you when you reach that stations. The Dublin bus drivers must have an enormous brain for being able to keep this in mind. But it worked pretty fine and after 25min in the bus he called for us and we left the bus directly in front of our bed and breakfast.

Liz was the one to welcome us and was one half of the owner of the bed and breakfast. The room was really nice and clean and to my absolute surprise they had blankets like I am used to have them at home. Normally when I travel somewhere outside Germany I am used to have several sheets combined to a blanket… We were directly informed that for breakfast we would be able to get coffee as well and I really hoped that this „coffee“ deserved it‘ s name… I’ve had terrible coffee in Ireland and normally switch over to tea when I’m there. I asked Liz how long it would take us to get to Trinity College if we walk the distance and she told us it would take us about 20 minutes, so I decided to walk there. Everybody who knows how good I am in reading maps would have already started to laugh at this point. Additionally I have absolutely no ability to orient myself. After one hour somewhere in Dublin and I must admit I had absolutely no clue where we were I tried to find the streetname on my map again and suddenly help arrived. Someone who was looking like a banker or lawyer stopped beside me and asked me if I had lost my way. When I told him where I was heading to he started to laugh and had to admit that I was quite a distance from Trinity College. Due to that nice guy I was first able to find the river (it’s a shame but we were running in circles so that we even didn’t get to the water) and from that we finally reached Temple Bar district, where I wanted to get into the tourist info. This was closed (bank holiday..) and so we ended up in some bar to have dinner and start my holidays with a typical Guiness in a pub named O’Neills.

When we decided to get back again we didn’t even try to walk back. We directly picked a bus and I could already figure out myself where we had to jump off (a fact I was quite proud of).

As for the weather (before I forget that). First day, first shower. A quite heavy one, but only for 20min or so….and to our great relief it would be the only shower for the whole week.