Dublin, wonderful Dublin!!

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Well, Dublin was everything we were hoping for. It is the friendliest capital in the world. A 40 minute flight and we were there, we caught Aircoach www.aircoach.ie into town and got dropped off at Trinity College. www.tcd.ie What a nice surprise we had there, our twin room turned out to be a spacious suite, kitchen/lounge/dining area, bathroom and two bedrooms. Great for a bit of self-catering too, and so cheap for the city centre location. Do stay here if you get the chance. Dublin was fully booked with the Fringe Festival and the Ryder Cup taking place and I understand the prices had been put up too, but Trinity got us in. Because we were on site we could also visit the Book of Kells early in the morning, before the crowds, and we had a really good look this time, its a beautiful manuscript.
What did we do? Well loads of things, shopped in the great stores in Grafton Street, Brown Thomas is amazing, just go and have a look at the Jo Malone stand! We took a coach trip to Malahide Castle and back along the coast, a trip on the DART railway to Dun Laoghaire (coffee, cakes and shopping). Visited the Guinness factory, fantastic view of Dublin from the 360 degree bar on the top floor, plus a free pint of Guinness! The Musical Pub Crawl was good fun and great value, book at the Tourist Office, www.visitdublin.ie . The musicians leading it were excellent, demonstrating the Irish instruments and singing their songs. We visited the theatre one night to see "Stones In His Pockets" a funny, virtuoso performance by two great Irish guys. www.ticketmaster.ie .
The food was terrific too, the best was a visit to O'Neills, www.oneillsdublin.com , near the tourist office. They do a great beef and Guinness stew, followed by live folk music, it was a good night out and highly recommended. Bewleys www.bewleys.com has changed quite a lot, (under new management) but the food is still nice. If you try the upstairs restaurant they cater for lots of different diets, the spelt bread with the soup was lovely, and you can have gluten free pasta.
There is still lots I want to do and see in Dublin and will definately be coming back (fingers crossed!). It's the people that make it special and I hope they never change.

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