Candy Crush

Feeling very lucky and privileged to have travelled to so many places around the globe in my 20 years this post is the first of (hopefully lots, if I keep it up!) travel memories – #MondayTravelMemory

So first city of the series, Dublin..

May 7th 2015, Jamie and I caught an early morning Ryanair flight to Dublin from Edinburgh for a fun few days filled with leprechauns, beer and rugby – oh wait and lots of rain! As soon as we sat in our seats and the seatbelt sign was turned on Jamie was asleep so I was left to listening to music and playing Candy Crush and you’d be surprised by how addicted I am to it still, all the King games seem to be just as addictive as the last.

Once landed we were a little unorganised (Or rather Jamie was as he had arranged the trip) and weren’t to sure where our hotel was located let alone the best way to get to it, but at the arrivals terminal we managed to buy 72-hour travel passes called Leap Card, (These can be purchased for a different time variations and for different cities in Ireland). Anyways so we got the airport bus into the city centre and then I want to say the #96 to the Travelodge at Phoenix Park and because we were too early to check into the room we stored our bags and hopped back on the bus to O’Connell Street.

I love just wondering around a new city and soaking it all up, exploring all the side street shops and cafes. We picked up a map from the hotel reception and tracked down the Leprechaun Museum which was ace! I did however think it would be a bit more hands on but it was a walked guide of story telling and a room packed with furniture 3x bigger than regular human furniture to give you the feeling of what it would be like to be a leprechaun. We spent a good hour(hour and a half) in there so afterwards it was food time – now don’t judge us, we ended up in…. Burger King once we’d fuelled up we walked along The River Liffey and enjoyed the ‘cute-ness’ of the city centre and the weather.

Waking up on the Friday the weather had completely changed but it was actually our busiest day. We headed out the hotel just before lunch time and wondered down to Temple Bar, due to the heavy rain most of the pubs were packed and we could find anywhere to sit down and eat in an ‘Irish’ establishment but we did come across a lovely Mexican restaurant in Temple Bar which did a great priced 2- course lunch menu and it was super yummy!

Next on the days agenda… The Guinness Factory – now this was the only thing Jamie wanted to do in while in Dublin and to be honest I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from it but wow. I totally recommend it! Architecturally the building is seven floors high and each represents a completely different aspect the brand, and the seventh floor holds the Gravity Bar which equals panorama views of Dublin. We thought we’d maybe spend 1 & 1/2 – 2 hours tops in the Guinness Storehouse where in actual fact we spend more like 4 & 1/2 hours so in hind sight good job we picked the rainiest day to enjoy it. We bussed it back to O’Connell Street, picked up a few snacks and drinks to keep us going and popped into Penny’s for a fresh- dry pair of socks, then headed out to the Leinster Rugby grounds. Through out the game the weather seemed to get more wet and more dull and more cold 😦

Our final day was chilled, we checked out and found a tourist information shop along the riverside where we could hold our bags and we come lunch time we came across a lovely ‘farmers’ market near Temple Bar and then went into a café near by for brunch. We sat a bench next to the Ha’penny Bridge for a while in the sun before doing some touristy shopping and then having to head back to the airport.