Day 21 Dublin, Ireland

Home of Guinness, Temple Bar, the world renowned Trinity College and many (many) churches. It’s a great place but one we had visited previously and seen all the aforementioned things and a few besides. So we decided to make our way into the city, take a wander around and see what took our fancy.

So after a walk from Merrion Square where we were dropped off about 10.30 am what took our fancy unsurprisingly turned out to be a visit to one of the hundreds of pubs for lunch (the Oliver St. John Gogarty Bar in Temple Bar in this case) which was pretty good. Lucky we were there by 11.45 as from soon after mid-day, every pub was packed with lunch goers. We then went for a stroll up Grafton Street the main shopping drag, through St. Stephens square, the Irish Parliamentary complex and ended up at the Natural History museum which was small but really comprehensive in it’s displays of Irish wildlife.

By then it was mid afternoon and time for (you guessed it!) another visit to a local pub (Kennedy’s in this case) before walking back to get the 2.45 pm bus back to the ship. Well that was the plan... Turned out the bus had left early as it was packed and the next one wasn’t till 3.30. So we hooked up with another couple of passengers and caught a cab back alongside the river Liffey, arriving back at the ship just before 3 pm.

As I type this we are just about to depart (6 pm) and have a sea day before concluding the trip in Southampton. So barring a huge win at bingo or one of the quizzes there will likely be little to report until we get to London on Saturday.

Photos attached show.... Pearse Rail Station; the River Liffey (with our ship in the far background); Hapenny Bridge; the Temple Bar (located in Temple Bar); the pub we had lunch at; the Natural History Museum; two shots from inside said museum; Grafton Street.Read more