Dublin

My husband and I finally made the jump and decided to go to Europe. Unfortunately we had already used up a week of vacation going to Disney, so we had to keep the trip to less than 5 work days. We had friends in London so we decided to meet up with them the second half of our trip. We landed in Dublin and spent 2.5 days mostly walking around leisurely and eating.

We ended up staying at The Dean which I would highly recommend, the location was down the street from St. Stephen’s Green and a short walk from Temple Bar. The one downside to our room was the noise coming from the local dance clubs directly downstairs from our room. We didn’t mind the noise too much since the view was beautiful and the windows were relatively sound proof.

Some quirky art in the hotel

On our first day we stopped by Hatch and Sons for a light lunch, the blaas (small sandwich bread) they serve was mind boggling good, definitely on my list of things to learn to make.

We then made our way to this dessert shop Dolce Sicily for the best pistachio cannoli I’ve ever had. We also ordered a pineapple coconut tart, not too sweet, and sat by the window and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

We then took a tour of the National Print Museum, it was a wonderful tour and a great introduction to the history of Ireland.

Things we loved:

Chester Beatty Library– if you’re short on time skip the book of Kells and stop here instead. It is much less crowded than the book of Kells, they have so many different copies of some of the earliest religious texts. We spent about 1.5 hours there waiting for our tour of Dublin Castle, but I would say if you can spend 2-3 hours visiting. We couldn’t take any pictures, but definitely recommend it.

Trinity College- take the tour

Our last breakfast

Obligatory tourist stop

We also made our way to Temple bar for some delicious pie at The Pieman Cafe, there’s also a cute art store right next door that was closing up, Jam Art Factory, so I had to make my way back the next day.