Ireland, Day 4 | Dublin, Part I

I consider day four of our Ireland trip to be what we call on our cruise vacations, “a day at sea.” Days at sea are when nothing particular happens: there are no excursions or countries to visit. This is kind of what today was like.

Our train to Dublin didn’t leave until noon, so we decided to sleep in and take it easy this morning. After three days in a row of being on the go and dealing with jet lag, it was much needed.

I set my alarm for 9 a.m, thinking there was no way I would need it because I never slept past 7 or 8 a.m. And yet… that alarm most definitely woke me up. Apparently, I was one tired girl!

I had to wake my mom up (around 9:30) so we could go downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast stopped at 10 a.m. and I think we got there 10 minutes til, haha, so we just made the cutoff. Breakfast was fine but nothing spectacular, probably because we got there so late that they weren’t putting out any new food.

After eating, we took showers, packed up our things, and then headed to the lobby to check out and ask for a taxi to the train station. I definitely did not want to walk there after the experience we had walking from the train station to the hotel the day before.

I was growing nervous, though, about missing our train because the main road to the train station (which was right outside our hotel) was pretty backed up. We ended up riding in the taxi with another traveler, a woman from Philadelphia who was traveling alone, so it was fun to chat with her on the way. And, thankfully, our taxi driver knew the side roads that got us to the train station in record time.

Our train ride to Dublin was interesting because we were in a cabin with all different American travelers. They weren’t rowdy or anything… it was fun to be surrounded by other travelers like us! But still, I suck at small talk with strangers so I wasn’t great at conversating with any of them. I just read my book, listened to podcasts, and played copious rounds of Candy Crush.

We got to Dublin around 2 p.m. and took a taxi to our hotel, which was right outside the Kilmainham Gaol. (Side note: it was so hard to tell every taxi driver where we were located because I never knew how to say “Kilmainham.” I always wanted to enunciate every syllable – kill-main-ham. Instead, it’s pronounced kill-main-um. I don’t ever think I said it correctly.)

Our room was ready for us, so we went right up to it and it had a beautiful view of Dublin. We also had a balcony, which would have been nice to sit outside on if it wasn’t so cold!

Once we were situated in our room, we had to decide what we wanted to do that day. I hadn’t planned for this extra time in Dublin because I thought we would arrive later (this is going off my original itinerary where I was driving). I checked into tickets to the Guinness Storehouse, but they were nearly €60 for two tickets, which seemed like a waste since neither of us like Guinness. And most other places we could have visited would be closed by the time we got to them via public transportation.

So, I was getting a bit grumpy at this point. Not only was I hungry, but I was also feeling a bit stressed out about not taking full advantage of every minute we had in Dublin. We’re in DUBLIN! We can’t just do nothing!!

So, we thought about going into the city centre to have lunch and walk around for a bit. Unfortunately, we were located about 3 miles outside of it, which meant any time we wanted to go into the heart of Dublin, we needed to take a bus or taxi. For this endeavor, we considered public transportation to save money. (A taxi ride into the city centre would be €20 easily – and that’s €40 total round trip.)

We got directions from the hotel staff on how to get to The Brazen Head, which is the oldest pub in Ireland, using public transportation buuuut I did not listen to her as closely as I needed to and couldn’t find the bus stop. I was getting super cranky at this point so my mom made the executive decision that we would go back to the hotel and eat at the hotel bar.

My meal was a bit of a hodgepodge because nothing on their menu caught my eye. And I was at that point of hunger where nothing really sounded appetizing. Does that happen to anyone else? It’s a weird feeling. I ordered a side salad and a breadboard with Irish butter, olive tapenade, and basil pesto. I also ate a lot of my mom’s fries. 🙂 We ordered this delicious s’mores brownie for dessert, which truly hit the spot.

After that, we decided to walk across the street to the gaol to see if we could take a quick tour but they were sold out of tickets by that time of the day. Whoops. So, instead, we went back up to our room at the hotel and took naps!

I felt a little silly about not taking advantage of Dublin since there is really so much to see and do here, but looking back, I know it was the right call and I’m glad we had a low-key day in the middle of our trip.

We woke up a little after 8 p.m. and we were hungry but neither of us wanted to eat at the hotel bar again. Instead, we decided to walk across the street to eat at The Patriot’s Inn. This restaurant actually had a ton of history, as it was established in 1793 as a place for people who were visiting inmates at Kilmainham Gaol or visiting the cemetery (since grieving and drinking go hand-in-hand). Pretty cool!

Our food there was super delicious, too, as I had a pepperoni pizza (omgggg pizza!!!) and my favorite Orchard Thieves cider. It was such a great meal and perfect for people-watching, as we were surrounded by Irish residents and I had a fantastic time eavesdropping on all their conversations. 😉

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and called it a night! Tomorrow, we had a full day ahead of us exploring Dublin. Whoop!