Adventures in Europe: Dublin, Ireland

Yesterday, with my bike trip behind me, I walked around Dublin city centre for awhile.

At some point I wandered into a souvenir shop to buy a postcard, and I saw posters of puffins. After visiting Newfoundland last year and seeing puffins, I am crazy about them, so I looked up if there are puffins around Dublin and, indeed, there are! So I quickly booked a puffin tour and headed out by bus to the Howth Peninsula. Here, there is a little harbour, and the setting was lovely.

Basically, for 25 euro I had chartered the boat for myself (this was just luck, the boat can hold more than twenty), and so it was just me and the boatmen heading out to the island known as Ireland's Eye.

There are about a dozen pairs of puffins that breed on the island, which is a very small number compared to what I saw in Newfoundland (I think there are almost 500,000 on that island!), and I only saw two puffins. So, what was actually more impressive were all the grey seals (which I don't think I have ever seen before) . . .

. . . and countless guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, cormorants, and the particularly beautiful and impressive gannets. My phone could not capture any of the birds, but they were beautiful and fascinating to watch on the cliffs, in the water, and in the sky.

The island is protected now, but was once the location of a monastery, as well as a Martello tower, which dates back two hundred years to Napoleonic times, when Britain built these towers all along the coastline of the British isles to protect against invasion. 

The loop around the island takes about an hour, and back onshore I enjoyed fish and chips on the wharf before heading back into the city.

This morning I left Ireland by ferry, heading over to Wales.

Adventures in Europe: Galway to Dublin, Ireland by bicycle

I am in Ireland to do some cycling, but I began my morning in Dublin by once again attempting to find a rabies shot. I went to a travel vaccine clinic, and they referred me to the Cherry Orchard Hospital, but that is far from the city centre, and so instead I walked along the River Liffey to pick up my rental bike.

The owner of this bike shop is named Paul, and he has quite the place!

Once I was all set up, I loaded up the bike, checked out of my hotel and rode over to Dublin Heuston to catch the 11:35 to Galway.

Once in Galway, I began cycling back east, and I will write more about that on my Cycling Edmontonian blog. On Tuesday night I stayed in Athlone . . .

. . . and on Wednesday in Maynooth, just outside of Dublin.

Yesterday evening I called the Cherry Orchard Hospital, which is more or less on my way back into Dublin, and ended up speaking to Dr. Seamus O'Dea, who is apparently "the" rabies guy in all of Ireland. He told me to come by and he would get me a rabies shot. Finally, I felt like I had a confident plan to get the second shot after my May 27 dog bite; according to the doctor in Tajikistan, I should have got this shot on May 30, so I am a week late, but better late than never. 

It took me about an hour of riding this morning to get to the hospital, and I got there in perfect time for my 10:00 appointment. 

I spent an interesting twenty minutes with Dr. O'Dea, who has been doing rabies shots for over 40 years, at a clip of about 100 a year, he said, so that is a lot of experience! And this in a country that has been rabies free for 100 years! He told me he wanted me to restart my rabies shot schedule, since there had now been so many days between the first and the second shot, but unlike the doctor in Tajikistan, Dr. O'Dea said in the western world they have reduced the number of shots needed from six to four. Anyway, I will worry about the subsequent shots once I am home in Edmonton. Meanwhile, I got back on my bike and finished my ride, another hour roughly, into central Dublin.

I will not visit the Guinness factory this time (although I very much enjoyed my visit in 2018), but I did manage to snap a pic as I rode by.

To really complete my cycle trip "coast to coast," I rode into the Dublin port, before turning around back in to the city centre. 

I checked into my hotel, dropped off the bike, and tucked into a pub lunch and Guinness, a nice conclusion to a lovely three days of cycling!

Adventures in Europe: to Dublin, Ireland

I woke up early this morning in Osh and took a taxi to the airport for a 7:10 Pegasus flight to Istanbul. A soldier made me delete photos I took on the tarmac that had the terminal in them, but he seemed ok with this one.

Of course, once I was on the plane, I felt free to begin photographing again, so I tried to capture a row of planes as we taxied by; I think several of these are Il-76s, including one which I believe is Syrian.

Someway into the flight, we flew over the Caucasus. First, Azerbaijan . . . 

. . . and then Armenia; this is Lake Sevan in the photo below. 

I was laid over in SAW (Istanbul) for a few hours, then onward to London-Stanstead. The view was quite different as we came into land over England. 

Again, I had a few hours lay over. I considered leaving the airport, but opted to just step outside and get some air, then waited for my 17:15 Ryanair flight to Dublin. I finally reached Ireland around 19:00 and, a couple of hours later, I was checked into my hotel downtown in Dublin, and out to a pub for a Guinness. It was the middle of the night in Osh, but I managed to enjoy my dinner and my pint before crashing.

Adventures in Europe: Dublin, Ireland

Today, my last in Europe, I took it really easy.  I began my day with a wonderful breakfast at the upstairs cafeteria of the Kilkenny department store.

From there I headed to the famous "GPO"--General Post Office, which is famous not so much for being a post office, but for its role in the Easter Uprising of 1916, when it served as the headquarters for the revoultionaries.

Having mailed my postcard, I went to this wonderful bookstore, which is right across the street from my hostel.

When I asked the older lady working if I could photograph the store, she said, "yes, go ahead." Then I said, "it's a wonderful bookstore;" and she said, "yes, it is, if I do say so myself!"

I bought a book, and enjoyed the cafe up above the bookstore for awhile.

After some lunch, I continued my relaxing enjoyment of Dublin through the afternoon and evening: I got a haircut, went for a cup of tea at a cafe, and then had a couple pints of Guinness at two bars in the famous Temple Bar district (which is just behind where my hostel is) while finishing Watership Down, the novel I had bought on the streets of Sofia.

Adventures in Europe: Dublin, Ireland

I am on my way home now, and my flight back to Canada leaves from Dublin on Thursday.  So today I flew from Barcelona to here on a Ryanair flight, arriving just after 12:00.

I caught a bus downtown, and checked in at my hostel, before heading over to the Guiness brewery for a tour of their storehouse.

The ticket is expensive (I paid €17.50, and that was apparently discounted from €25), but they sure give you an incredible experience!  There are three floors of exhibits on the history of Guiness and how it is brewed (including a lot of reminders on how special their yeast is--emphasized by this exhibit with the yeast in a safe!).

There is a whole floor on Guiness advertising campaigns!  

This gallery includes the beautiful old harp that inspired the Guiness logo.

There is a very strange clam, which I guess was used in ads for awhile.

But my favourite Guiness animal is for sure the toucan!

On the fourth floor there is a tasting room, where they teach you what flavours are tasted for in the daily Guiness taste tests.  

Then there is a bar where they teach you how to pour the perfect pint of Guiness.

And finally you can enjoy a(nother) pint in the bar at the top, with a panoramic view of Dublin and the brewery down below.

Somehow I was in the Guiness storehouse for over two hours, which quite surprised me, because usually I tend to go through these types of things really quickly.  Even then there were videos and write-ups I skipped.

It was dark by the time I left and so I returned to the hostel before having a dinner of fish and chips in an (Irish) pub nearby.  I had assumed I would enjoy a Guiness with my dinner, but I had had enough this afternoon, so I opted for a Smithwick's.