Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Dublin Part I

Bus from airport to city...My Dad (in hat)and Conny. I guess now is the time to give my views of Dublin. I hoped it would have the buildings and feel of London/Edinburgh/York, etc. I was very disappointed, seems their idea is to tear things down and build anew. Few 1700 structures survive, most are 1800's or newer. I have tried to capture the feel of Dublin in a three-part entry. My favorite area was Grafton Street and Temple Bar. Our first lunch was at a mall of sorts, Brambles eatery, my Dad had soup, Conny a ham cheese sandwich and I had a plate of 3 salads plus 2 drinks. Cost for this was E22 or $29 USD. Also if you want your sandwich toasted it costs more. Electricity is very costly so hence the cost. My Dad liked his soup but my salads were just food for energy. LOL


Behind our hotel was Moore Street Mall. This is a closed street with vendors selling fruits/vegetables and some other items. This takes place everyday.


My Dad purchased bananas and said they were the best since he had been in South America.


























Our hotel...a chain throughout UK. It is a 3 star hotel...point of that is you do not get a facecloth, I had to use the corner of my hand towel. I asked it they had forgotten to place them in the room and was told only 4-5 star hotel provide those. UGH!!!


It had room coffee service-tv-hair dryer-bath and shower. Almost like home... A Irish Breakfast was served buffet style, glad it was included never would have paid E 13.95/$18 US for it.




We saw many old time butcher shoppes. I enjoyed glancing through the windows at things I would never buy like kidneys and other offal. The shoppes were well stocked and had almost anything you could think of for a meal.















Arnott's is a department store, one of the buildings that I felt had character....

















Agricultural Building mosaics of farm scenes. Hope this clicks larger. On the Liffey River by O'Connell Bridge.













Just a pic















Buildings along the Liffey.










The Millennium Needle is about 400 ft tall (120m) was built to mark the Millennium. From my understanding it was not finished 2003. You hear much grumbling about the cost and how in these economic times many wish it had never been built. It is lighted at the top, but not very bright.













View of city and M Needle from my room.






















Ditto




















View from room. Great view, but below me was a street cleaning shop. Noise all the time, even overnight as they dumped the trash. Left the tv on at night to cover the noise. They used small vehicles that they ran on the sidewalks, you had to be alert all the time as they operated constantly.










A jewelery store that all lit up at night, cute!!!














The Post Office building. Postcard stamps were E .82 or $1.06. And we complain! Good Friday was a bank holiday and so was the following Monday. The whole week after Easter is called Easter Holiday week, kids out of school and so on.













4 comments:

Sydney said...

Never been to Dublin but thanks to you, I feel like I have. It was a lot of work to do these posts, but we all appreciate getting to see where you were and what you did!

meb said...

Was hoping you'd post early delee so we could enjoy all that you did. This was fun to see.

Anonymous said...

I was headed over here to your blog weeks ago and didn't make it. I am so glad I finally got here ! Thanks for the photos and commentary.

Live.Love.Eat said...

Dublin looks like such a great place!

Thanks for popping by. About that Seafood Dip you commented on - maybe they made a mistake. I only used mayo so who knows. But it was good as is so I would do it again :)