May 20, 2025 - Today we're signed up for a bus tour with Paddywagon, to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. I'm usually against bus tours, but it seemed like the easiest, most relaxing way to get to see the cliffs and I thought it was relatively cheap at $80 each. We met at the Paddywagon office on O'Connell (a 10 minute walk from our apartment) at 7:50AM. We had a few stops on the way and then we had lunch at the Frantic Chef, just 10 minutes from the Cliffs. We had an hour and a half to explore once we got to the Cliffs and then it was a beautiful drive along the coast. We had a final stop at Kinvarra before heading home (we were home by 8:30). It was quite a long day but I thought it was well worth it!
The Paddywagon!
Our first stop Bunratty Castle
Bunratty was a pretty little town where we could stretch our legs.
We drove through so many cute little towns
And we finally made it to the Cliffs of Moher
The trail is closed off at one end as it is too close to the cliff's edge and they are rebuilding the trail to make it safer. But we had plenty of trail that was open to hiking (about a mile and a half).
Everything is SOOOOO green!
I took a lot of pics of the cliffs
You could do a boat tour to view the cliffs from the water
There were a lot of people there
The rain held off until our drive home!
Really pretty drive home
lots of random castles
We sat in the front seat, which I really enjoyed since I love to take pics!
I can't get enough of all the stone fences that are everywhere!
more cool views from the front seat of the bus
We stopped for pics at the Murroughtuohy viewpoint
The road (R477) was extremely narrow. This wasn't even a very narrow spot, but cars would pull over as our huge bus came toward them. Sometimes the bus driver and car driver would have to fold in their sideview mirrors so they could get by.
such pretty views!
The Merriman Hotel has the largest thatched roof in Ireland
We stopped in Kinvarra to stretch our legs
nice colors
more colors
I liked the decorative framing around these windows
We stopped into a little bar for a quick pint of Guinness
The tide was out and these boats were high and dry. When I looked it up Kinvarra has a tide range of up to 14 ft. (We saw a 50 ft tidal range when we visited the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick last year).
Dunguaire Castle in the distance
Kevin read an entire Jack Reacher book today (which he read on his phone)!
May 21, 2025 - Today we have reservations to visit the Guinness Storehouse at 10:15, then a 2:30 tour at the Kilmainham Gaol. We bought the Visitor Leap Pass at the Bus Office on O'Connell. It was $20 each for a 72hr pass which is unlimited on buses, trams and Dart trains around Dublin. We took the 13 bus to Guinness, and it was pretty easy to use along with Google Maps telling us which bus to use.
we of course had to sit on the second floor of the bus!
We made it to the Guinness Brewery
The Storeroom tour isn't actually a factory tour it's more of a museum. It's in an old Guinness factory, built around the old pieces from the brewery. In 1759 Alfred Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease with the city of Dublin with an annual rent of 45 pounds.
they used to use A LOT of barrels and had a large crew of coopers that built all these barrels. There was a nice exhibition that showed how this was done and they had video of a Guinness cooper making a barrel.
The harp is used as the emblem of Guinness
I liked this article that told how good Guinness was for your health. "Guinness builds strong muscles. It feeds exhausted nerves. It enriches the blood. Guinness is one of the most nourishing beverages"
Kev's been drinking a lot of Guinness since we got here. I guess he's building strong muscles!
We got a Guinness with our picture on the head
It was hard to take the first sip, but it was well documented so we won't forget it.
and we had a nice view of Dublin while we drank them
and then we got another free beer to drink in the 360 degree view bar on the roof of the storeroom
After the tour we stopped for lunch (and another Guinness) before taking the bus to our tour of the Kilmainham Gaol.
Another random castle across the street from the Gaol. It was the entrance to the garden of the Art Museum
The only way to visit the Gaol is with a tour ($7/each). We had the most enthusiastic tour guide I think we've ever come across. His name was Adam and he really told the stories of the jail, so that you felt it.
Kilmainham Gaol was built in 1796 and was a new style of jail, with individual rooms for each prisoner (although once it was in use they had to put many prisoners in each room). Men, women and children were all housed together. The youngest child housed in the jail was 3 years old.
The main hall was added later (and has been used in a lot of movies)
nice spiral staircase
Kilmainham's latest prisoner
The jail housed many prisoners during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). This was the area where prisoners were brought before the firing squad.
May 17-18, 2025 - We're headed to Dublin! Indianapolis has a new direct flight to Dublin that will make our trip super easy. It's an 8 hour flight which leaves Indy at 7:50PM and gets into Dublin at 8:00AM. Since we weren't in a hurry to get to our Airbnb we took the Airbus 700 from the airport to O'Connell St. The bus was 10 Euros each and dropped us just a few blocks from our apartment. We stopped for a coffee (we only got about 2-3 hrs of sleep on the plane and the coffee helped wake us up a bit). Next we went in search of SIM cards for our phones. The ATT international plan costs $12/day for 10 days and then is free for the remainder of the billing cycle. The second phone on the plan is only $6/day, so between the two of us it would have cost us $360 since our trip spans 2 billing cycles. The SIM card plan we decided on has unlimited data for $22/month, while in the EU. The plan also came with 30 Gbs of roaming data outside of the EU (which we will use once we leave Ireland for the UK). So we should save over $250. We found a 3 Co store where they helped us with the cards. We took out our current SIM cards (while our phone was still in Airplane mode, and added the new card with the EU phone number on it. Once the card was in the phone we turned off the airplane mode and we were able to use our apps and we will use What's App for text and phone calls while we're here. It sure was nice to have access to Google maps with the new card. We had a few navigation problems while trying to find some place that sells SIM cards, since I didn't download the Google maps that I needed! We got settled at our Airbnb and then headed out for some exploring.
We're going to Dublin!
That's Ireland down there...
Our Apartment is only a few blocks from the Spire. We should be able to walk to most of the places we want to visit this week.
A coffee on O'Connell St
Home sweet home for the next week
there are some pretty buildings in Dublin. This one was decorated with painted tiles.
We found the most famous bar in Dublin...Temple Bar.
It was hoppin' on this Sunday afternoon and they had live Irish music which we really enjoyed.
We started off with one of Kev's favorites a Smithwicks
Then it was time for a Guiness, which I had never had before. It didn't look like a beer I would like, but it was actually quite good.
I love all the flowers
The Temple Bar area is cobblestone streets and pedestrian only in certain areas.
More tiled buildings
The Ha'penny bridge (a pedestrian bridge) over the Liffey River. The bridge was built in 1816 to replace ferries that were taking people across the river. For 100 years a ha'penny was charged for crossing the bridge.
We're happy they don't charge a ha'penny any more
The Church Cafe is just a few blocks from our apartment, so we stopped there on the way home.
Each night at 6:00 they have live music and dancing, so we'll have to stop back later this week, because we're a little tired tonight
pretty bar
May 19, 2025 - We went to bed at 8:00 last night and slept until 7:00 this morning. I think we're caught up on sleep! Today we're headed first to the Leprechaun Museum, a 10 minute walk from our apartment. This isn't a typical museum. Our guide led us through several rooms in the museum, and told us stories about leprechauns. He was quite a good story teller and we learned a lot about Leprechauns, Fairies, Banshees and Pucas. The image of Leprechauns that is widespread today (green jacket and red beard) was how Walt Disney chose to portray Leprechauns in the movie "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" and the image has stuck.
Another view of the Ha'penny bridge
The Leprechaun Museum
Our story teller shrunk us
beautiful bench at the museum
Next we had lunch and a beer at the Brazen Head (the oldest pub in Ireland). The beef stew was amazing (it's got 3 dollops of mashed potatoes on the top!)
Christ Church, pretty cool bridge across the street
We wandered around the church courtyard
but decided we'd do the tour of St Patrick's instead
The entrance into Trinity College
beautiful bell tower
It was graduation day at Trinity College, which was fun to watch the grads take pics in the quad
The 1200 year old Book of Kells is housed at Trinity college. We did a self guided audio tour ($22/each). This is Ogham which is old Irish writing from the 4th-7th centuries written on stone. We weren’t able to take pictures of the Book of Kells. It was smaller than I expected (not as big as the Guggenheim bible we saw in NYC). The Book of Kells are the Gospels (Latin text) that are beautifully scripted and decorated. They were crafted by monks on the island of Iona and moved to Kells after Vikings raids.
The tour led us through the Narrow Room in the Trinity Library.
The hall was lined with sculptures of notable philosophers, scientists and authors.
Many of the shelves were empty as they are doing a conservation project.
They have added 4 sculptures of notable women. We were happy to see Ada Lovelace the first computer programmer (we get this clue often in crosswords).
"Gaia" by Luke Jerrom which uses images of earth from NASA.
The oldest Irish harp
Pretty building on the Trinity campus
Superman on O’Connell St?
There's the Spire again, as we cross O'Connell Bridge. The Spire was erected in 2001 after a redevelopment of the O'Connell area.
More O’ Connell St
Dinner at home tonight. Chicken salad with a 55 cent loaf of bread from Tesco 😋
