A Blissful Weekend in Dublin


Dublin is one of the closer places that I have visited so far so this upcoming trip was always a little lost in my mind, overshadowed by the thrill of my other trips such as Lisbon, Amsterdam and Barcelona. As the date neared, though, I did start to get really excited. I was heading off with a different group of people this time so that alone was pretty exciting.


We arrived in Dublin late Friday night and checked into our hotel, Hazelbrook House, before having a quick dinner and resting up early for our weekend ahead.


The weather was gorgeous when we woke up the next morning. We spent the day walking around the Dublin city centre, visiting the typical tourist attractions and beginning at Trinity College. The campus was beautiful and so full of history, it's crazy to think that it's still a functioning university and right in the centre of Dublin too. I couldn't imagine going to a university where there are so many tourists walking through constantly. Getting to and from classes would be such a pain!



 Our hotel in Dublin for the weekend

 Trinity College

 Trinity College

Trinity College 

Trinity College

Next, we headed towards Dublin Castle, wandering through the streets of the city on the way. We came across a cute little market place (you might have picked up by now that I love markets) that sold a range of handmade and vintage goods but the stall that won me over was the fudge stall. I couldn't hold myself back from trying some vanilla and chocolate fudge.

Dublin Castle itself was a little underwhelming. For a castle, it wasn't particularly impressive and after a quick look, we decided that we didn't want to pay for the tour and promptly left on a quest to find a satisfying lunch.


 The Custom House



Fudge stall 

Dublin Castle

We walked around the area of Temple Bar trying to find the perfect place to have lunch when we came across a Japanese and Korean restaurant that sold sushi. Sushi is probably the thing that I have been craving the most since leaving Australia so I was super excited to finally have the chance to have some! I was so happy when my food arrived that I scoffed it all down before realising that I hadn't taken a proper photo of it! I was way too excited to be reunited with salmon sushi that I forgot to document the moment. Thankfully, Benjamin hijacked my camera during lunch and took a bunch of random photos (mostly of Darnesh) so I did manage to salvage one decent photo for this blog post.



Temple Bar 

Temple Bar 

Temple Bar 

Japanese and Korean lunch photographed by Benjamin

Next, we went to a park (that I can't recall the name of) that was gorgeous, with streams running through it and perfectly green grass. At this point though, the sun had begun to set and it was getting colder by the minute so we headed back to our hostel, almost getting lost on the way.

For dinner, we went on the hunt for a burger joint called Rick's that had been recommended to one of my friends who was with me on the trip and boy were we glad that we had gone there. The food was amazing! Hands down the best burger I had ever had in my life (up until that point, more to come on that front).


The rest of the night was spent dancing at a club just outside of the city centre. I'm not sure if it's just the place that we ended up at or if all other Irish clubs are the same but it wasn't exactly like a traditional club. There was TV with the cricket playing and overall, it felt more like a pub than a club. I guess the Irish just can't resist adding a pub in wherever they can, even if it's in a club.







For our second day in Dublin, we decided to take a quick trip to a coastal town half an hour out of Dublin called Howth. The town was beautifully picturesque and we got quite a workout walking up the many hills but the views that we saw from the top were definitely worth the sore quads.

We also came across a small marketplace (yay more markets!) that had a bunch of street food stalls (street food being another one of my loves) but we'd just had breakfast so all I could do was drool over all of the delicious looking food with a full stomach.



 Howth Market

 Howth Market

 St Mary's Church


Howth 

 Howth

Howth

We spent a couple of hours in Howth before taking the train back into Dublin, hoping to catch a glimpse of St. Patrick's Cathedral before the sun began to set. We managed to make it back on time but the weather wasn't great. It began to drizzle down with rain by the time we got to the Cathedral and on our way back, the slight drizzle had turned into a heavy downpour.

The rain ended up being a blessing in disguise though because to escape it, we hurried into the nearest pub where I ended up having my best meal since leaving Australia. I thought the burger I had at Rick's the night before was amazing but the one I got at this pub was even better! 


We didn't want to waste away our last night in Dublin so even though we knew we had to be up at 3am for our flight home, we decided to hit Temple Bar and spend our last few hours in a pub. Dublin night life is truly great. Even on a Sunday night, all the pubs in Temple Bar were packed to the brim. The vibe in the pub we ended up in was awesome, with live music and people singing and dancing along. It was the perfect end to a perfect trip.


St. Patrick's Cathedral 

St. Patrick's Cathedral 


Overall, I really enjoyed my time in Dublin. It was a gorgeous city but I probably won't rush back there anytime soon. I loved it but I feel like we got everything that we could of out of our time there and I'm not sure what we would have done if we had an extra day. I'll be dreaming about that last burger for a while...

1 comment: