Enjoying the Craic: One Day in Dublin

"The Whole World's a Playground" - Julian, aged 4

We arrived in Dublin last night for the beginning of our three week school holiday trip. It was simply too easy getting here. As we approached Bournemouth Airport a little less than two hours before the flight we asked someone if we were too late to check in, as it is an international flight. With a laugh he told us we were too early..Bournemouth must be one of the smallest airports in Europe and ours was the only flight that afternoon, and our plane only fit about sixty passengers.

To flight to Dublin was so quick and so scenic, with the help of a map we were able to watch our progress over Wales and across to Wexford and up the coast to Dublin. Getting our bags and our hire car took no time and before we knew it we arrived here at the Croke Park Hotel. A terrific choice if your in Dublin with a family and don't mind sharing a room with the kids.

With only two nights in Dublin we had only one day to see the sights and I must say after moving house this week we are all pretty tired and weren't up to much. I've never been overly keen on the idea of hop-on-hop-off buses, as I love taking the local transport and walking but today we decided this would be a good way to relax, see the sights, and get to were we wanted to go.

St Patrick's in the glorious sunshine

As you will recall whilst on our adventures in Wales and Herefordshire I looked up the places our family lived centuries ago. Typical of most Aussies whose family have been in Australia for a long time we have family from a number of different places in Britain and Ireland. In Dublin our family history is quite special and I looked forward to sharing it with the kids. In the early 1900's my family was living in Geraldton, Western Australia, and as a child a great uncle of mine was approached by an Irish Catholic Nun who told him how his great, great, great, great grandmother, Kitty Witherington (Heaviside) was sister in law to the famous Irish revolutionary and father of Irish Republicanism Theobald Wolfe Tone.



Visiting "Uncle Theobold"

With the help of my mother, the family tree expert, we head out this morning armed with the addresses of the family home in Grafton Street, the location of the churches our family were married and buried at, St Anne's in Dawson Street, St Andrew's church (now the tourist information centre), and of course the Wolfe Tone memorial statue in St Stephens Green.

St Anne's were "Grandma Kitty" was buried and "Aunty Matilda" got married to TWT

We decided to do one complete circuit on the big green open top bus, which luckily picked us up after breakfast at our hotel. One complete circuit took us an hour and a half and actually covered the majority of our wish list which was brilliant. The highlight of the bus trip was Ronnie, the driver who took us on this first circuit, a born comedian who has us in stitches with his witty commentary.
With patches of sunshine this was a lovely way to see Dublin, laughing ourselves silly, sitting upstairs with the sun shining on us, the wind threatening to tear us from our seats while driving past the Dublin Zoo, and a little light rain thrown in as a bonus..well what else did we expect in Ireland.

The GPO

Famous Bullet Hole

Driving past the huge Guinness factory the unmistakable smell of the beer was enough to have Ronnie swerving on the road. Rob tried the Guinness last night at the hotels bistro and said it was far better than any Guinness he had ever had before. Still we were able to restrain ourselves and skipped the highly priced, but very popular Guinness Storehouse tour.

After the tour we had to make a quick shopping detour, something I must admit I dislike and never do on holidays if I can avoid it. Unfortunately we managed to misplace Julian's warm winter raincoat, which we did not realise until we were making the mad dash to the airport. Apparently the department stores don't stock raincoats at this time of year.."what" I hear you cry..this is Ireland after all and even our good mate Ronnie the driver admitted you should expect four seasons in one day year round. Luckily a camping shop with an end of season sale was able to get us back on track.

 The next stop was for Julian who had been promised a playground and shown pictures of the one in Saint Stephan's Green yesterday as a way of keeping him interested this morning. We got off the bus at Trinity College and after visiting "the tart with the cart", or Molly Malone as she was better known we took a walk down Grafton Street. This was to kill two birds with one stone, allowed me to look at the old buildings our family lived in (though they may have been long ago knocked down) and keep Julian on track as St Stephan's Green lay at the end of the road.

Sweet Molly Malone

St Stephan's Green was a grand place for a walk, especially after sitting in the bus for quite a while. The spring flowers were beautiful, even displays of tulips could be seen, and the swans on the lake were picture perfect.  After a quick visit to the resident statuary for family photos Julian was first to spot the playground and away we went.

As usual the kids had a great time and Emma made friends with an American girl here on holidays with her family. The playground was very good, making St Stephan's Green the perfect place for a visit when in Dublin with kids.

 We could have stayed longer but hunger pains has us moving on to find some lunch. In cities like this I really need to remember how easy it would be to pop into the supermarket for picnic provisions, which would have been far cheaper, healthier and tastier than the lunch we ended up with. I'm usually pretty picky about what the kids eat but tired and hungry I agreed to Emma ordering sausages and chip and without a word of a lie they gave her a basket of chips with twenty chipolatas on top..Yuck and really what were they thinking!

We decided to take the second hop-on-hop-off route through the Docklands after lunch which was less scenic but quite interesting and only took half an hour. This left us just enough time to jump back on the main route and over to William Street South for Emma's stop of the day, an Irish Dance class at Jig, an Irish Dance studio and museum. The boys decided to stay and watch as we were put through our paces with a huge tour group of students from England. It was a great way to spend an hour regardless of your ability to dance, and you have to admire the skill and patience of the instructors, who were amazing dancers.

After the disaster of lunch we choose an Italian restaurant in a back street of Temple Bar for dinner and was not disappointed. Il Vicoletto in Crow Street was the perfect choice, serving authentic, delicious Italian food in a small cosy restaurant. The kids shared the homemade ravioli of the day, homemade tomato infused pasta with ricotta and basil filling and a buttery sauce, Rob had lamb rack and I had delightfully thin veal with pancetta in a white wine sauce. Our only complaint would be that both mains were served only with roast potatoes, and without the insalata mista we would not have enjoyed it as much. So with lots of passing around the food to share the joy, we all enjoyed our one night out in Dublin.

After quick walk over the Ha'Penny Bridge we jumped in a taxi and we were back at the hotel in a few minutes, tired but satisfied with our ten hours in Dublin's fair city. Our bus ticket is valid for two days, but when we asked the Hotel staff if faced with a choice of half a day in Dublin then a drive to Galway or a drive to Galway and an extra half day there, we were given a confident recommendation that Galway is "grand" and we should head there without delay. So even though we know we have barely scratched the surface of this place, with a recommendation like that how could we argue. So after breakfast tomorrow we will head off to traverse the country before lunch. I'll tell you all about just as soon as I can and of course enjoy a pint of the local for you too.