Our Portraits in Beer Foam

The pints of guinness with portraits of John, Kimberly and Zoe in the foam

Checking out the Greens around Dublin

Swans on the pond in St. Stephen's Green

Georgian Town homes around the squares Today is a bank holiday in Ireland.

We have glorious sunshine as we head out to check Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares. These are beautiful parks that are surrounded by Georgian town homes.

John standing at the arch in St. Stephen's Green We continue on to St Stephen’s Green which is another park filled with statues , greenspace, and a pond with swans that seem to have posing down to an art form.

Dublin is a great walking city. We stroll through Grafton Street, a pedestrian shopping area before crossing the bridge and heading to EPIC, the award winning Irish Migration museum. We decide to tour it tomorrow since we want to give it more time than we have today.

The Irish National Gallery

The outside of the National Gallery of Ireland

Zoe meets us at Ireland’s National Gallery which is in yet another gorgeous building.

Trinity College and the Book of Kells

Zoe and Kimberly standing in the green of Trinity College

We are booked at 1:00pm for a tour of Trinity Collage. This is an amazing campus with buildings from so many different time periods. Our guide, a graduating student of the school, has lots of fascinating stories about the place. Click here for a short video of Trinity College.

Bell Tower at Trinity College The bell in the bell tower rings at random times. There is a superstition that if a student is standing under the bell tower when it rings, they will fail an exam. Our guide said it really happened to her.

Our tour ends at the library where the ancient Book of Kells is housed. I notice that there is a Large wooden library at Trinity College large red (ugly) building labelled “the Book of Kells” nearby. We are told that that will be the books temporary lodging while the beautiful old library and its books undergo massive restorations. This will take many years to complete. We are lucky to see the book and tour the library because it closes for this restoration very soon.

The book truly is amazing and the library is fabulous. It actually smells of old books…not a bad smell, just a distinct one.

Guinness Storehouse Tour

Kimberly and John's pictures in the beer foam

John and Kimberly at the Guinness Gates It’s a good thing that we grab ourselves a quick bite on our way to the Guinness Storehouse tour because this is one tour that you do not want to do on an empty stomach.

The tour is done over seven floors which are shaped like a pint glass. It is really well done covering everything from the old The Fish on A Bike from Guinness wooden barrel making, to the ingredients, process, advertising campaigns. We especially like the “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bike” campaign. Click here for a short video of the display. On one floor they give us small samples with a lesson on how best to drink Guinness..

We have the ultimate Guinness tour that includes pints with our portraits in the foam and then another pint in the Gravity Bar.
Kimberly and Zoe at the Gravity Bar
The Gravity Bar gives a great all round view of Dublin. There are barely (if any) sky scrapers in Dublin. It’s dark out now and we can see fireworks going off around the city.

Temple Bar Area

Lit up pub at the Temple Bar area

We end the evening in the Temple Bar area which is full of pubs and restaurants. Many of the pubs are packed, probably because today is a bank holiday. Most pubs have live music.

We find a traditional Irish restaurant called Quays Irish Restaurant where we have another hearty Irish meal.