Dublin - Day 2

Hey

I had a seriously scrummy breakfast to start off the morning. It included white and black pudding, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, a fried egg and brown sauce. We had a really nice lie in beforehand - I really needed it as I was exhausted from yesterday and my dad snoring SO loudly throughout the night.

My dad and I caught one of those hop-on hop-off buses, which I would really recommend if you're ever in Dublin. It's only €20 for two days and it takes you absolutely everywhere you could want to go. All the national museums in Dublin are free, so we went to the Natural History Museum. It's the weirdest but coolest place ever. I don't know if that's just because I absolutely love biology so science is super interesting to me anyways, but the museum is really old fashioned. It's full of stuffed animals, which I can completely see would put a lot of people off but I found it great as it meant you could stand right next to an elephant and know exactly how big they are. They are ridiculously huge! I don't agree with stuffing animals and hunting in general, but I think the animals had been there for many years, almost since the Victorian era, so I'd much rather they be on display for people to appreciate than chucked away. They also have skeletons of extinct animals such as dinosaurs hanging from the ceiling which is really cool.

We hopped back onto the bus to the Guinness factory. It's the largest tourist attraction in Ireland - last year 1.27m people visited, that's the population of Dublin! There are just so many floors, you feel like you're climbing stairs forever. Each floor tells you how they produce the Guinness from field to pint. There's this really exciting bit where you go into sense rooms to try the drink. You walk down this dark corridor playing loud music upon which you enter a completely white room with four basins pouring out different smells. You're then given a small glass containing Guinness that you're not allowed to drink until you enter the next room, which is really dark, where this man tells you exactly how to drink it to taste the full flavour. It was quite a snazzy experience but I don't know if it actually makes a difference! We ate lunch at the storehouse in Gilroy's restaurant. It was extremely yummy! I had mussels in a cream and Guinness sauce which sounds horrible but it was ridiculously good! After lunch we went to the top floor. Here you get a pint of Guinness included in your ticket - I didn't get ID'd (sorry I have no idea the right way to write that so I'm hoping you get what I mean!) which made me so happy. I couldn't drink a whole pint - it was just way too heavy especially after a large lunch. I really liked it though which kind of surprised me as I never normally drink stout.

not my image

It was pretty rainy when we got out and quite late in the afternoon. You know that awkward time when there's not long enough to go to another sight but not too little time that you can just hang around? We decided to just continue around on the bus back to our hotel. I think the whole route is just over an hour so it was pretty good. Plus, seeing all the other sites is fun, even if it is just from the bus.

We had dinner at this gorgeous restaurant on the other side of the river in the Italian Quarter. I think it was called Bar Italia, if you ever go to Dublin I really recommend it. I had smoked salmon to start with lemon juice, capers and wholemeal bread. For my main I had this lovely pasta with sausages and spinach in a cream sauce. It was so filling! I say this, but I still managed a pudding of panna cotta with summer berries. I really wanted to take a picture of the meal to show all you guys but I wasn't brave enough. It just didn't feel right in the restaurant.

We walked back towards the hotel afterwards, but stopped to have a drink in an Irish bar, with live music. I absolutely love that about Ireland. Pretty much every pub/bar after about 7pm has live Irish folk music. It's so lovely sitting and listening to them. Plus, when a faster song comes on people clap along and get up and dance - it's so so cool!!

Thanks for reading!

Lizzie
 xxx