Skip to main content

Dublin day 2

This morning started pretty early for me with a 3am wake up, not for necessity, just my body clock not quite adjusted as yet.  Just outside our front door, literally directly across the road is the famous Temple bar, to my surprise when I got up there was still a lot of partying happening, and the bar was still open.



I waited until the sun rose a bit before I wandered down to get some photo's whilst the street was deserted. It s a lovely looking pub, but we haven't ventured in as yet.
So we started off with an early morning stroll, to the Guinness storehouse tour, we were the first group to go in . . . Anyone who knows Mr Googy knows he likes to be organised and arrive early.



The tour was self directed and was over five floors, detailing the process of how the beer is made and how different advertising ideas were invented.  There was a tasting room ( I didn't partake....) where they explained the different tastes and how to drink the beer properly. And finally as you reached the top there is a bar with a 360 degree view over Dublin. It was a really interesting tour and only one mouthful of Guinness passed my lips.


After leaving the Guinness factory we headed to Christchurch Cathedral. Here we payed for the tour of the church, which I have to say was a really smart move. The tour was fabulous, the tour guide was so funny and so knowledgeable. He explained the various aspects of the church and how one of the walls is leaning 18inches . . . but it's been like that for a long time so we weren't to concerned 



We were taken up to the bell tower, where they let us ring one of the many bells . . . and we could see these fabulous views across Dublin and to the hills.



The tour guide was telling us that the choirs of both the Christchurch cathedral and St Patrick's were the first to perform Handels Messiah back in 1742. 
Whilst showing us the two organs that belonged to the cathedral, the tour guide explained that, a quiet a while back the they had had trouble tuning the oldest organ, eventually it was decided to pull it apart to discover the issue. The above mummified cat and rat were found firmly wedged in one of the pipes. The cat and "mouse" are referred to in James Joyce's "Finnegans wake".


After leaving the church we wandered to another part of town to meet up with the infamous Molly Malone. Molly is actually a fictional character  however is so well know for her cockleshell sales by day and her alternative employment by night that she has been immortalised for all time in brass. After this we headed of to a yarn shop "this is knit", that I have followed for months on instagram, unfortunately I was totally out of luck, the shop was closed for Bank holiday, and when I return next weekend it will be closed again.



So after after all this walking and to drown my sorrows we headed to the oldest pub in Ireland " the Brazens head" Mr Googy had his Guinness and I had a cider and we enjoyed the history surrounding us on every wall of the pub. Later that night we enjoyed a few other bars and pubs, in clouding the O'neills pub which has little rooms going off everywhere and I had my first bowl of Irish stew. 
It was a little great day and we both managed to stay awake u til 9pm . . . . 


Thank you for sharing this journey with me


Ciao 

Googy girl 

Please don't feel offended if I do not reply to messages, we will be on the move a lot through out this trip and I have limited internet access

Comments

Susan said…
I'm sure the Guinness tour was interesting, but it's definitely worth some yarn and fabric stores! Hope you find some yarn soon. x

Popular posts from this blog

Toorale homestead - Louth

We set off from Bourke  , we had stayed the night at Kidmans camp , which was a lovely spot and headed off south to start the Datling River run. For the first few hours we didn’t see any river as our first destination was  TooraleHomestead The drive in was pretty good , lots of dust and a little bit of corrigation but really quite good  We seen some wildlife including an eagle  Bit blurry as it was taken through the windscreen of the car ,  Some Emu’s and kangaroos  The homestead itself is closed to the public except during school holidays ,so we didn’t get to go in but , we knew before we arrived that was the case and I was keen to see it anyway. Sir Samuel McCaughey in partnership with his Brother John and cousin purchased Toorale, Nocoleche and Dunlop station. Acquiring 800 000 acres of land and 130 000 sheep and 80 horses.  Eventually Samuel bought his brother and cousin out. He built the homestead in 1896 as a wedding gift to his niece. The golden years for the homestead were betw

Scrappy chook quilt

So I have been keeping this one under wraps, not on purpose mainly just because I have been a very lazy blogger. A few months ago, as most of you know I had a visit to chookyblue's place, whilst there I had the pleasure to sleep under some of her gorgeous quilts. But one in particular took my fancy I just loved the scrappiness of this quilt, the lovely colours but mainly just the simple design. So when I headed up to Nundle for my retreat, I sent the lovely Kerry a photo and she assured me she could pull together some lovely fabrics and guide me, to put this lovely quilt together. When I arrived at Nundle This lovely bundle of fabrics awaited me The girls and I used the black and white feature on the iPad to determine light medium and dark fabrics I spent 3/4 of the first day creating these squares, I think I frustrated Miss Joolz because I just could not be random, I had to be organised I didn't want to get end and end up wit

Burren junction - Brewarinna

Beds on Barwon We left Newcastle at a reasonable time on Friday morning not gadgets ( my husband) usual 4am start and headed west.  We really never planned this trip out as such we vaguely decided that sitting by a river with a fire was our plan , a chance to take a deep breathe and slow down our lives for a bit. Almost 13 years ago we were extremely fortunate to do the darling river run with some wonderful friends and thought that we would love to repeat that trip and hopefully see the Darling river with water this time.  However at this stage our plans are a little up in the air with the road to Louth currently closed due to rain and some of the national parks closed for the same reason. Soo where are we heading , not sure but wherever we are heading it will be an adventure. So on day one we drove to Burren Junction where we spent our first night of our adventure at a truck stop  This is our new travelling Duo Reggie ( car) and Ruby ( van) we decided last year it was time to say good