Tiff & Jared's adventures

Day 5

Jared and I decided to sleep in and take a break from our go-go-go routine so we slept in until about 8:30 and walked down to Quill’s for some window shopping before leaving Killarney. I ended up getting a very cute sheep hat and some knick-knacks before we hit the road for our first stop of the day, Limerick. Thanks to a recommendation from our friends, we stopped at The Locke for lunch, which was right on the river. Jared got some really great fish and chips (first of the trip) and I got a decent salad. We then walked around town for a bit, which honestly I wasn’t overly impressed with. Maybe because it’s a working city and not built for tourists with cute little shops of wool sweaters and Guinness trinkets, but it wasn’t as enchanting as the other towns we’d been in. Before walking back to the carpark, we stopped at Abbey House for a coffee and I had a full American moment, trying to pay with pounds instead of euros (all mixed up in my wallet). The guys behind the counter jokingly bantered they don’t support the queen down in these parts, and I was thoroughly embarrassed 😳 Republic of Ireland is very different from Northern Ireland, people! 

The next detour before stopping at the Cliffs of Moher was the Burren Smokehouse. Somehow through my research back home, I wrote this gem down as a must to go and try some authentic, locally smoked salmon. The visitor center was in the town of Lisdoonvarna, the only spa town of Ireland. The background story is interesting – at 18 years old, a farmer’s daughter from Sweden wandered into the small Irish town of Doolin and met her future husband, and they’d go on to open this award-winning business that ships cold and hot-smoked salmon across the world. We didn’t have time for a tour but the lady behind the counter was nice enough to give us a tasting (delicious) and we got a pack of the honey, fennel and whiskey cold-smoked salmon to bring to Galway for breakfast one morning.

Content with our pit stop, we made our way to Cliffs of Moher. As you can imagine, it was pretty touristy. There was a huge carpark and we coughed up some amount of euro (can’t put a price on beauty) for the quick walk to the cliffs. The visitor center was very cool – it was built into the cliff and reminded me of a hobbit hole! We looked at some exhibitions and the gift shop before walking out to the cliffs. They were absolutely incredible! We got there around 3 and the sun was shining everywhere (we got really lucky with the weather on this trip). There was a nice walkway all around the cliffs and a fair amount of barriers, but if you really wanted to jump off, you could definitely find a way. On the site, there was a tower where we could climb up to get a better viewing point. The worker there gave some interesting history about the structure. During the great potato famine, the landlord of the surrounding area built this structure for tourism and used the money to support his tenants. He didn’t charge rent for the entirety of the famine and was able to offer work to his tenants so that they could eat (given the choice between food and money, nearly everyone chose food). The employee we talked to further explained how this was uncharacteristic at the time, and most all other landlords treated tenants in the exact opposite way. Because of this, if you were to compare the population of this landlord’s area versus other neighboring areas, there are more people still here today because they haven’t emigrated and left the area. Fun facts! We spent the next hour or so walking around the perimeter of the cliffs and reveling in their awe. To be honest, we enjoyed Cliffs of Kerry almost just as much because they were less crowded. But, glad we got to see these cliffs as well!

In a little of a time crunch, we got in the car again (lots of driving today) and made our way to Galway. This would be our base point for the next two days, including Saint Patrick’s day. I was also very excited because I spent a lot of time researching restaurants, and was torn between going to Michelin-starred Loam or Yelp-reviewed, cozy-looking, Ard Bia – Nimmos at the Spanish Steps. We ended up deciding on Ard Bia, and had just enough time to check in to the hotel and walk over for our reservation. What a good decision we made – it was so good! The restaurant was near the Spanish Arch, and it was in an old stone building. The atmosphere was so very cozy – dim lighting, eclectic cutlery and quirky table settings. It felt like we were in someone’s home! The menu changes every day, so everything was very fresh. To celebrate the end of a lengthy day, we ordered a bottle of white wine and started with a Connemara crab toast (delicious). For our mains, we got monkfish and trout. Both were very good and unique flavors – for instance, my plate had a seaweed (“dillisk”) butter. Apparently cooking with seaweed is pretty common in Ireland. Too full for dessert, we left with our hearts and bellies happy. 

Day 6 – Saint Patrick’s Day!! / “Galway city is a place to be, not a place to do”

We woke up just in time to make our breakfast reservation in the hotel. With the expectation of multiple Guinness’ throughout the day, we definitely wanted to get our stomachs full of food. Our hotel (Harbour Hotel – would recommend) was serving buffet-style breakfast and we made a DIY Irish breakfast. Definitely different than what we’re used to with the sautéed mushrooms, black pudding and roasted tomato.

With our stomachs happy(ish), we were ready to seize the day, Saint Patrick’s Day! Before leaving the hotel, we dawned our matching t-shirts (“She’s my lucky charm” and “He’s my shamrock”), necklaces, leprechaun earrings, and green pants/jackets – we were ready! The first thing of the day we wanted to do was see the parade that started at 11:30. We walked from our hotel to the cathedral, where the parade started. We were over an hour early so we had time to walk around the cathedral – we thought it was a super old building like everything else in Ireland, but it was actually constructed in the 50s/60s. Very pretty inside! We then moved outside to claim our spot for the parade, which ended up being a great spot as it was on the corner of a bridge and we got a view of all the participants as they turned onto the bridge. It was definitely a family-friendly parade – there were various children representing their sports teams, there was Irish music and dancing, and lots of multi-cultural groups (Indian dancing, Chinese dragon and dancing) – all very cool! The parade probably lasted about 45 minutes and people quickly dispersed afterwards. Our first stop was a bar off the beaten path that Jared found on Google Maps – Cooke’s Thatch Bar. We walked in and it was very unassuming and pretty empty. We definitely found one of the local spots! We got two pints of Guinness and sat in the corner while watching the horse racing on the TV and about to leave, a local guy named Francis came up to us and struck a conversation. He brought us two more pints of Guinness and talked for a bit (Irish hospitality has been 10/10).

Definitely tipsy before lunch, we went to a chain fast casual place called Boojum for lunch, which was Ireland’s equivalent of Chipotle. After eating and getting invigorated, we walked towards the hustle of city center and wandered into the famed bar Tigh Neachtain, which I had written down in our PowerPoint. It legit was probably one of the coolest pubs/bars/gathering places we’ve ever been to; there were so many nooks and crannies. It was pretty crowded already, so we took our drinks and stood behind a booth we found. Two friends came over a short while after and we shared the spot and got to talking for the next hour or two. One of the guys was from Glasgow, and visiting his friend currently living in Galway. It was so interesting talking to them about various topics, including American politics, what is currently going on in Ukraine, and various places in Ireland to visit. Continuing the trend of hospitality, we took turns sharing rounds of drinks (Guinness, whiskey, and Bailey’s on the rocks). We eventually had to leave in order to make it to Galway City distillery – we stumbled upon this place after lunch and walked in to an empty distillery. Apparently it wasn’t open yet, but suggested we come back later that night (it had only been open for four days). I’m glad we decided to go back – it was a nice reprieve from the Guinness, and the cocktails were excellent! Jared’s had some local coffee and blackberry dust that was absolutely delicious. It was also nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the ever-growing, busy pubs. Ready to hit another pub, we walked over to King’s Head Bistro and split a pint, while sitting in the back patio and listening to a bunch of kids singing Irish ballads at the top of their lungs. Getting close to our bedtime (so around 9PM) we walked to one more bar, O’Connell’s, that was recommended to us by the guys we met earlier in the day. O’Connell’s was yet again very cool! All of these bars seem to continue on through multiple rooms, and there was an outlet to the back where there was music and a huge outdoor beer garden. The pub was originally opened in the 1860s, and the beer garden was very cool because it looked like a fake street, with mock store fronts i.e. a cigar store. Finishing our last shared pint, we walked the streets back to our hotel (felt very safe walking everywhere).

Day 7

We wanted to make sure we didn’t sleep in too much since we had another busy day ahead (Connemara National Park and Slieve League). So, slightly hungover, we hopped in the car, ate some of the granola bars we brought from home (ya never know what kind of breakfast products you’ll find abroad), and started the 2 hour drive to Connemara, our third national park of the trip (after Wicklow and Killarney).

To be fair, I slept a decent amount in the car, but as we got closer to the park, the scenery was stunning! Obviously the mountains aren’t like the ones in Colorado, but they were beautiful in their own way. We got to the visitor center around 11, which was good timing because the parking lot was still relatively empty. With the limited research we did beforehand, we decided on the Diamond Hill hike. There was a lower and upper loop, and we decided on the upper which was about 7k roundtrip. I’m very glad we did the upper, because the lower loop was not much in elevation gain and we wouldn’t have seen too much. As we summited Diamond Hill, the wind picked up substantially and it was quite the struggle to summit. Like, this was the fiercest wind I’d ever experienced on a hike! I was worried if I had a dog or small child with me that they might have gone with the wind. Once we finally summited, the view was spectacular – we got panoramic views across all of Connemara. On the decent down, I was honestly squatting close to the ground so I wouldn’t get swept over. The views going down the backside were just as spectacular, but we hustled down quickly as we still had more driving for the day! Once back at the visitor center, there was a cute cafe called the Hungry Hiker, where we got tasty sandwiches and carrot cake before heading off to the next place.

From Connemara, we had about a ~3 hour drive to Donegal, where we’d be staying in an Airbnb close to the Slieve League. For those that don’t know (like me before planning this trip), the SL cliffs stand nearly 3x their more famous sister, Cliffs of Moher, making them some of the highest cliffs in Europe. We checked in at our Airbnb first, which was literally on the road to the Bunglass viewing point; if we had more time, we could have walked from our Airbnb. After checking in, we drove up to the carpark (5 euro charge – we were surprised there was a checking point), and walked the short distance to the viewing point. The cliffs were very steep, and beautiful against the setting sun. I wish we had more time, because there were hiking trails along the ridge of the cliffs. Another thing to do when we go back! After taking some pictures and staring at the cliffs’ beauty for a bit longer, we went into down and grabbed dinner.

Day 8

Surprise – today was a very long day as well. We woke up to another Irish breakfast prepared by our host, and left before 8AM to make it to Northern Ireland in order to see Giant’s Causeway. GC is a series of basalt columns formed 50-60 million years ago, as a result from successive flows of lava inching towards the cost and cooling when they contacted the sea. Fun Fact – GC is Northern Ireland’s only UNESCO world heritage site. Unfortunately, we got there a little late and had to pay for the visitor experience, which basically just entitled us access to the visitor center and using the bathroom within. Since we were aiming to be in Belfast that afternoon, we didn’t have too much time to do anything besides walk down to the columns and take some pictures. The walk was about 15 minutes from the carpark, so it was a little touristy since it was so easily accessible. However, it was so geologically cool when we got down there! There were hundreds of hexagonal-shaped columns emerging from the ground, some going up 10, 20, 30- feet. The columns were centralized to a certain part of the coast, so that when we left and took a hike along the cliff back up, there were no columns a few hundred feet away. Crazy how centralized that geological phenomenon was! The hike up connected us with the clifftop trails, and provided an excellent bird’s eye view of the shore. With one last look, we walked back to the car and hit the road again for Belfast. We were in a bit of a crunch racing against the clock.

The three things on the agenda for Belfast was visiting St. George’s market, visiting the Titanic Belfast museum, and doing a walking tour. I spent a bunch of time in the car looking for a last minute walking tour and finally found one. Originally, I wanted to do a Troubles-focused walking tour to understand the perils that Northern Ireland experienced not so long ago, but with our time constraints, we had to choose an afternoon/evening tour.

The market closed at 3PM, and we rolled into Belfast right around 2PM and found parking a few blocks from St. George’s. We waited to have lunch until we got to the city, and found lots of food vendors still open at the market. After eating, we walked around the market and found some cool crafts and locally-made gifts. Staying on a very tight schedule, we kept going to make our 3:10 reservation at the Titanic museum.

For those unaware, Belfast was the site of the building of the Titanic at Belfast’s Harland & Wolff shipyard. In fact, a bunch of the paintings and pictures in the market we saw had the iconic yellow cranes still standing where the shipyard used to be. The beginning of the tour focused on early Belfast, and how it rose to prominence in multiple industries. One of the things for which Belfast is known and I was unaware was Linenopolis – during the last 1700s, Belfast rose to prominence as the dominating city of fabric production in the British Isles. Another industry flourishing in Belfast was shipbuilding. The museum went to great depths talking about the history of this industry, as well as how the construction of the Titanic was commissioned in the city. Because the museum was opened in 2012, it was very modern – there was even a ride (spoiler!). We spent a little too much time at the beginning, and because the museum closed at 5PM, we were rushing through the last exhibits and galleries. These rooms included the maiden voyage of the Titanic, the materials used for the different classes (i.e. steerage, first class), example of what a first class room looked like, the crashing of the ship into the iceberg, telegrams being sent to neighboring ships for help, last words of some of the passengers, survivors of the tragedy, and arriving to New York. Further into the museum included rooms filled with interactive screens to trace the wreckage across the ocean floor after it was discovered, and where various memorabilia found was charted across the ocean floor. I would definitely go back to this museum and spend double the time we were there.

Wrapping up, we made our way to St. Annes square, which is where we were to meet our tour guide for the walking tour. I signed Jared and I up for a Street Art, Music and Pub Experienced with Belfastology. Our tour guide, who is the sole owner of the walking tour company I think, was named Marti and a very eccentric human being. The tour itself lasted 2.5 hours, and included walking through streets and alleyways of the city, navigating the ins and outs of hole in the wall bars, and gaining an understanding the various artists that have visited the city and left their marks.

We were blown away by his knowledge of all the murals, as well as the artists behind the paintings. For instance, we passed one guy doing street art on a utility box, and Marti somehow knew the artist was painting 5 boxes that day. Apparently due to the peace and reconciliation message that the city is trying to achieve after the Troubles, there is no political art in the city center anymore; you have to travel to west Belfast to see the political art (of which Marti has a separate tour).

I won’t describe each artwork we saw, but I’ll highlight some of the cooler ones. Even though this wasn’t a Troubles tour, Marti knew I was interested in the history so he took us to a mural of a young boy holding a dead dove in his head, shot by two arrows. One arrow had a Protestant cross on it, while the other had a Catholic cross on it. The mural was also drawn so that the boy was staring toward the Belfast cathedral – for this reason, this mural, even though political, was left up as a reminder of the dark history of Belfast.

Another very cool mural was that of a heart being powered by machines. This is to commemorate the first open heart surgery/heart transplant (I’m writing this a week after and honestly can’t remember) that happened in Belfast (although I tried to fact check this and can’t confirm). Regardless – very cool mural.

And there were so many up-to-date street art pieces as well i.e. a peace sign colored blue and yellow for Ukraine.

As this was also a pub tour, Marti literally walked us into many lively bars (during Ireland-Scotland rugby match) and knew where all of these really cool places were. One of the bars we walked into was called Sunflower, and had green bars in the front. The history was that during the tumultuous period of the Troubles, this bar was a Protestant (or maybe Catholic) specific bar, and you had to know someone in order to get in. Leaving the bars outside was a way to remember the past. I wrote down all of the cool places he took us into so when we have more time next time, we can go back. I’m going to memorialize them here when I read this in a few years. (Places to check out include Mourne Seafood Bar, Jumon, James Street Down, Sunflower, The Deer’s Head, Angel and two Bibles**, Waterman house cookery school, and Thirsty Goat).

Overall, we really enjoyed the tour because it gave us an orientation of the city, and we never would have found these places on our own. Marti guided us towards all of these random, narrow streets and had knowledge of basically what happened at each corner. He even knew where graffiti once was that had since been cleaned – my favorite one was “Boris Johnson is a wanker”. If only we had more time to explore the following day! We ended the tour at Crown Liquor Saloon, which happened to be on my list of pubs to visit. It was founded in the 1800s as a gin palace, and had beautiful and elaborate tiling, woodwork and stained art throughout. One of the cooler tidbits of this bar is that part of it is lit by gas lamps, making it one of the few establishments in the world providing light in this manner. We ended up eating dinner on the top floor, and Marti joined us for a drink! It was a great night in Belfast and we enjoyed eating dinner and conversing with a local.

Day 9 – Dublin

We woke up around 7AM to get an early start on the road for the 2 hour drive. In order to fly back home, we had to get rapid tests and show negative results for COVID. So, we planned appointments outside of the city so we could take care of that before we spent our day in the city. One of the first places we went was the EPIC museum – I was pretty excited about this place. It walked through the emigration story of Irish people. The location of the museum itself was important because it was built into one of the largest pre-20th century clear-floor spaces in Dublin city (the museum was subterranean). Another cool touch was that everyone entering the museum was given a “passport”, and as we passed through each room of the museum, there was a desk where we could stamp our passports. One of the takeaways was that families and individuals emigrated due to three reasons – hunger, work or community. Now, there are millions of people around the world with Irish heritage. I won’t spoil any more of the museum 😉

The next stop on the list was the Guinness Storehouse. Now, I did some research on Dublin sight-seeing before our trip and stumbled upon the Go City pass. This company exists across various cities of the world, and is a way to bundle tickets for multiple attractions in one city. So, for a flat rate of the pass, we were gained entry to EPIC, Guinness and Jameson (and there were dozens of more attractions included in the pass that we just didn’t have time to visit).

The Guinness experience was breathtaking – there was definitely millions pumped into the visitor experience that we went through. The tour itself was self-guided, and took about 1-1.5 hours to get through the various floors of the storehouse. (Actually, the tour started with us walking over the 9,000 year lease signed by Arthur Guinness in 1759). The tour started with the 4 ingredients used to make their beer, then progressed to the process of making beer, including adjusting the recipe to add nitrogen). Moving up, the tour went through the the process of making the wooden barrels (fun fact – a “cooper” would be the craftsmen that would make the wooden barrels – which come in different sizes – for the beer). We kept making our way up the floors until we got to the important floor – the tasting room. We walked into a pristine, white room and immediately smelled something in the air. The tour guide explained that each of the four stations in the room was emitting vaporous smells of the 4 key ingredients of Guinness (Water, barley, hops, yeast). The barley vapor smelled amazing – bits of chocolate and roastiness mm. We each got samples and walked into a separate room where we got additional history about Guinness and the founding family. Next, we were ready for the Gravity Bar. This was the highest part of the tour/storehouse, and our admission got us a free pint of any of the Guinness beers on tap (had to go with the classic). Jared found us seats near the window, and we sipped our pints while basking in the sun. Lovely experience!

Keeping on schedule, we emptied our pints and drove over to Jameson. Now, I’m not a huge whiskey fan but a tour is essential for first-time tourists. Using our Go City pass, we got in the 4PM tour. This was a guided tour, and talked through the history of the company before moving into a separate, more interactive room. In this room, we walked through the process of distilling whiskey, and got to smell various stages of the process as we listened. Finally, the third room was the tasting room. Because our dinner reservations were at 5, we had to somewhat quickly get through our 3 samples (the beginning of the tour started late because there was a rowdy group of 14 Frenchman that had to be kicked out for excessive talking).

Our dinner reservations, the last meal we’d have in city center Dublin, was largely based on restaurants on First Table. I have mentioned in a previous blog that this website allows you to book a seat at certain participating restaurants for the first slots of the night, hence “First Table”. I did research ahead of time on the best restaurants in Dublin on First Table, and settled on the Port House Cava. It ended up being a very good choice! Port House was a tapas-style place, and we got delicious plates of scallop, sauteed vegetables, crab, trout, and some tasty appetizers. Because of all the re-packing we had to do, (we had to fit our new purchases between our two carry-ons), we decided to go to our hotel after dinner. Unfortunately, the hotel was outside of the city because we were staying near the airport since our flight was at 8AM the following morning. Saying goodbye to city center, we drove out to our hotel, packed our bags, and hit the hay before 10PM.

The next morning, we woke up about 5:45AM and headed to the airport. After a little rental car return fiasco, we made it into the airport and barely with time to spare at our gate because the security lines were so long. And just like that – our trip to Ireland was complete. Between the history, beauty, culture, and charm of Ireland, I would definitely say yes to going back to The Emerald Isle.