Dublin, Spring 2022 ~ Travel
Travel to Ireland in mid Spring and you might just enjoy all 4 seasons on the daily. Luckily, we managed to escape the rain with remarkable skill (maybe because we are from the Pacific NW and got a nose for it?) and enjoy an incredible amount of sunshine and warmth.
We spent our first two days in Dublin, getting over jetlag, taking in all the culture, and sampling some pretty incredible cooking. Our Airbnb on Grafton Street overlooked Trinity College, walking distance to the famous Trinity College Library and the Book of Kells exhibit. On the opposite end of Grafton St, our very first tourist stop was Stephen’s Green. Dublin has some wonderful parks and really impressive museums. Besides the usual Dublin Castle, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trinity College, museums of art and archeology, I would also HIGHLY recommend EPIC The Irisn Emigration Museum. This very modern, highly interactive museum tells the story of Irish emigration to the United States and other countries, and details the emigrants contributions around the world, representing Irish national legacy and heritage with pride, detail and honesty. (Interestingly enough, Neville Isdell, a long-time Chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola, with close family ties to Ireland, was the founder of this museum. Whether it was the same production company or not, EPIC reminded me a lot of Coca-Cola’s museum in Atlanta, due to the similarly phenomenal quality of exhibits, graphics, special effects, etc.)
As I have mentioned above, we were lucky to dine at a few really great restaurants. I always get a bit of a FOMO when trying to select places to eat and not wanting to fall into the tourist traps. Not this time, and part of it was just luck, and part of it was that highest ranked places also delivered quite nicely. Or maybe it is that Irish cuisine is pretty straightforward, and it’s hard to ruin an Irish stew?
Our first lucky stumble for The Bull & Castle by F.X. Buckley, with the most amazing dry-aged beef. Everything was delicious, even the fries had a unique flavor. Sitting right across from Christ Church Cathedral, it is also only a few blocks away from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The other remarkable place for dinner near Grafton Street has some great literary ties, which is important in Ireland, with four Irish authors having received a Nobel Prize in Literature. Davy Burns was considered Dublin’s “most famous literary pub”, and now serves some great authentic Irish fare in a gorgeous setting.
And lastly, no visit to Dublin would be complete without a stop at the Guiness Storehouse. Some might consider it “touristy”, but this beer is national treasure, the Irish are very proud of it, and the Storehouse itself is yet another example of the high quality, modern, interactive “museums” we liked so much.
