I surprised John for his birthday and took him away to Dublin for the weekend. John has never been to Ireland so this was a great introduction to a beautiful country, friendly Irishmen and the home of Guinness..."mother's milk." Not that John needed any introduction to Guinness, but it was nice to see where it originated.
We stayed at a great boutique hotel called The Dylan. Really funky decor, great hotel bar and a very comfortable bed! After arriving we wandered down to the bar for a drink to decide where to have dinner. We had a light snack and decided we needed to get to an authentic Irish Pub.
First stop Searson's. Unfortunately for us, food service ended at the bar. We looked at each other and simply shrugged and repeated a favorite saying, "every beer is a sandwich." And so we had our first pints of Guinness - in the homeland. We had a great time just sitting in the pub talking and laughing. It doesn't take much to entertain us and quite frankly, John is my best entertainment and I am pretty sure me and my crazy gene keep him laughing.
We returned to the hotel and slept like logs! We didn't wake up until there was a faint knock on the door at 8:30 a.m. We still had the "Do Not Disturb" sign up but breakfast had arrived. We decided having breakfast in bed was in order. So we lounged around having coffee, reading the paper, watching some news and enjoying the peace and quiet. Then we were off to see a bit of Dublin.
Dublin is a very walkable city. We followed a walking tour in our Dublin guidebook and hit all the highlights: The Grand Canal; Fitzwilliam Square; St. Stephen's Green; Trinity College (where my Grandma's house is!); Grafton Street and Merrion Square. We also dog-eared a page called, "Dublin's Best Pubs" so if we happened to see any of them along our walk we stopped in and sampled the Guinness. We managed to visit Davy Byrne's, The Duke and O'Neill's.
A definite highlight was the Guinness Storehouse. Here we wandered along a very informative path through the brewery to learn how Guinness was created, perfected and now served all over the world. We have been visitors of the Anheuser-Busch brewery in St. Louis so the beer making was pretty similar. But it was Arthur Guinness' decision to stop making a lager and only focus on the stout that is pretty interesting. The tour ends in the Gravity Bar where you are given a pint of Guinness to sample. It is no wonder the bar doesn't not sell additional pints as people would never leave. The bar is a 360 degree view of Dublin - just beautiful especially on the sunny day we were lucky to have.
After returning to our hotel to freshen up for dinner we decided to have a drink at Cellar Bar. A very cute wine bar that came recommended from our friends Kelly and Andre Basile. We had a nice quiet drink and then started on our short walk over to the Shelbourne Hotel for dinner at the Saddle Room. As we walked past the Merrion Hotel I met eyes with none other than Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams. Naturally I had to stop and talk to her. She could not have been friendlier or lovelier to the crazy stalker woman from the U.S. John, as horrified as he was, did manage to take this picture of us with my phone!
Dinner at the Saddle Club was outstanding. We had a very kind waiter who took good care of us and we ate ourselves silly! It was a very Happy Birthday dinner for John.
On Sunday we spent the morning doing a bit more sightseeing and walking around. We visited the Dublin Castle, Temple Bar and of course ended our sightseeing with a pint of Guinness at O'Donoghue's, where the Dubliners fold group began in the 1960's. And yes, it was on our dog-eared page.
We had a great time and really laughed a lot together reminding ourselves of why we liked each other in the first place! We really do entertain one another and enjoyed seeing Dublin together. After two great days in Dublin, however, we missed the kids terribly and couldn't wait to return to London to see them.
Slainte!
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