Dublin - Thu 8/3
Had a good weekend in Dublin from Friday night to Monday night. Flew from Glasgow after an interesting bus trip through Paisley and arrived at our hotel in Temple Bar after 11pm. Saturday was spent doing the open top bus tour of the city (and nearly getting our heads blown off by the wind in Phoenix Park), then after an excellent lunch at The Oval Bar in Abbey Street we went to see the Book of Kells and Trinity College's Old Library, followed by a search in the wrong place for a Boxty bar before settling on a Gourmet Burger Kitchen. On Sunday we went back on the open top bus but this time we stopped off, first at the Guinness Storehouse exhibition then at Kilmainham Jail. The Guinness exhibition is excellent, and I took advantage of the voucher to have my first ever sober pint of Guinness! The beef stew in the restaurant / canteen is also well worth the money. After briefly stopping to admire the carriage horses we caught the bus along to Kilmainham Jail. This is the jail that was reopened to house the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, and where they were executed a few days later. The tour is well worth it, and the exhibition makes a decent attempt to explain the complex politics of the 1916-1924 period. On Sunday night we went to see Simple Minds at the Olympia Theatre-a bit more intimate than the SECC where we last saw them! The band were in fine form, although some members of the audience were more interested in getting well drunk or videoing the performance or the crowd than in participating or (heavens above) listening. Ended the night with another pint of Guinness - when in Rome! Monday was spent going tourist phot0graph crazy along the banks of the Liffey, and buying mementoes and gifts for family at home. Uneventful flight home but swapping Euros back to pounds managed to leave my passport at the airport - police called when I was lr route home so had to go back tor it later in the week. All in all a good fun trip -but Still plenty left to do on return trips in future!