Dublin - County Wicklow - Belfast

We finished work early on Thursday 23/02/17 to take a late afternoon flight to Dublin. Unfortunately however our flight was delayed by several hours due to a winter storm sweeping across Europe so it was quite late in the evening by the time we arrived in Dublin. As Dublin is an expensive city we decided to stay in a private room in a shared apartment instead of having an apartment to ourselves as we usually do. The people we stayed with were very nice but this was not our favourite Airbnb experience as we found that the apartment was cold and you had to turn the boiler on about an hour ahead to have hot

water for a shower.

On Friday morning we woke early and had a delicious Irish breakfast at a local cafe (Wuff Cafe). While neither of us is a huge fan of black pudding we were both fans of white pudding which is very popular in Ireland and Scotland. White pudding is similar to black pudding, but it does not include blood; it consists of pork meat and fat, suet, bread and oatmeal formed into a large sausage. It tastes a lot better than it sounds!
After breakfast we walked across the River Liffey (which runs through the middle of Dublin) and up to the Guiness Storehouse for our tour. The Guiness Storehouse is located on the premises of the operational Guiness St James Gate Brewery and is 7 floors of interactive experiences/Guiness museum. We really enjoyed ourselves and spent several hours learning about the brewing process and about the Guiness family and how Guiness has shaped Dublin as a city. We finished off the tour with a pint of Guiness in the rooftop Gravity Bar which has 360 degree views of Dublin City and of course we grabbed a few souvenirs.
(Photos: Dublin trams; the Guiness Brewery; Gravity Bar; Guiness Storehouse).

A few blocks from the Guiness Storehouse we visited The Brazen Head Pub which is officially Ireland's oldest pub dating back to 1198. We enjoyed another pint and some food sitting by the indoor fireplace and chatted to some fellow travellers before continuing our exploration of Dublin.

Next stops on our walking tour were the Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick's Cathedral. The Christ Church Cathedral was originally built and established in 1030 by Sitriuc, the Norse King of Dublin and was a Viking Church before being incorporated into the Irish Church in 1152. St Patrick's Cathedral is around 800 years old and is the largest cathedral in Ireland as well as being surrounded by a beautiful park.
We continued on foot to the famous Temple Bar neighbourhood of Dublin and visited the Parliament Hotel pub, The Dame Tavern and The Old Storehouse Tavern in between souvenir shopping and snapping photos of the street art.
(Photos: The Brazen Head; Christ Church Cathedral; St Patrick's Cathedral; Temple Bar; Molly Malone statue).

We finished off the day with a delicious American style BBQ platter at Smokin Bones Bbq restaurant and then took the bus back home. Luckily we were so exhausted we managed to crash out despite the cold apartment!

On Saturday morning we took the bus back into the city centre and picked up our hire car from Europcar. We grabbed some breakfast on the move and began the drive south through County Wicklow towards the medieval town of Kilkenny. Despite being a fairly cold and overcast day it was still an amazing drive through the greenest, most lush looking countryside we have ever seen.

When we arrived in Kilkenny we took a walk through the Kilkenny Castle grounds and had cream tea in the castle tea room (which was originally the location of the castle kitchen). We continued exploring the town including the famous Black Abbey and looked in some local shops before grabbing some supplies and making our way towards our Airbnb for the evening.

We drove back up through the Glendalough National Park to our Airbnb cabin on a farm just outside the town of Rathdrum.
After dropping off our bags we went out again and drove to the nearby seaside town of Wicklow where we enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Friary Restaurant 1896 before heading back to the cabin.

With the rain having cleared up we lit a fire in the chiminea and sat outside under the stars and drank a bottle of red wine by the fire before heading to bed.

(Photos: Kilkenny Castle; Black Abbey; Kilkenny town; driving through Glendalough National Park; at the cabin).

Sunday morning (Matt's 35th birthday) we had home cooked breakfast at the cabin before commencing the drive back up to Dublin through Wicklow Mountains National Park. Unfortunately the weather was very poor during our drive so we were not able to have a picnic as we had planned. We made a stop at a beautiful lake in the mountains called Lough Tay (also known as the Guiness Lake) which is the filming location for Kattegat in the TV show Vikings. The lake is situated on a private piece of land owned by the Guiness family and although cars are not permitted on their land they do provide walking trails for people to hike around the area. If the weather had been nicer we could have hiked our way down a walking trail to the lake and the man-made beach. However given the gale force winds and freezing rain we decided to just jump out of the car, take a few pictures and then get the hell out of there.

By the time we arrived back in Dublin around 2pm the sun had come back out but it was still quite windy and chilly. We dropped off the hire car and enjoyed a hearty Irish pub lunch at The Long Stone pub before heading off to the train station for our train up to Belfast.

(Photos: Lough Tay).

The train journey took around 2 hours 45 minutes and we arrived in Belfast in the early evening. Belfast provides free buses from the train station to the city centre (a 5 minute journey) and then we had an easy walk from the bus stop to the Park Inn by Radisson Belfast hotel.
We had dinner and a few drinks at the hotel restaurant/bar and then had an early night.
With only one day to spend in Belfast we got up early on Monday morning to make the most of the day. We grabbed breakfast at a local cafe and then took a walk through the city centre before jumping on a bus across the River Lagan to Belfast port in order to visit the newly built Titanic Museum.

The museum building is constructed on the site where the Titanic was originally constructed by the White Star Line company. We spent several hours exploring the interactive exhibitions which took us through the history of Belfast, the construction of the Titanic, mock ups and a 3D virtual tour of the completed and fitted out Titanic, the story of the sinking of the Titanic and then a really interesting exhibit regarding underwater research and salvage techniques.

We finished up at the museum and then walked back across the river into the city centre where we had a late lunch and Matt finally had the opportunity to have a Guiness paired with a dozen oysters fresh from the sea. He still cannot stop raving on about how delicious it was.
With the day quickly spent we gathered our luggage and took the bus to the airport for our flight back to London and then we were straight back to work on Tuesday morning.
(Photos: Belfast City Hall, city centre and pink buses; Titanic Museum; River Lagan; Guiness & Oysters).