June 10, 2017

Last night was the final night for Bojan, my favorite casino dealer  (so if you are reading this, please send me your email address, I forgot to ask!)  He has been on for 10 months so I guess he was happy to be leaving. All of the usual suspects will miss you!  Hope to see you “around the world”! 

Dublin was our party place – we had an all day outing with Tanya, Drew, Shary, Rob, Tory and Bill – we had a van and a driver, Shea, who took us to all of our destinations. 

We started at the Guinness Storehouse, a must when visiting Dublin!  The experience has you make your way through a building designed in the shape of a giant pint of Guinness, big enough to hold 12.5 million pints.  Their story started 250 years ago and we saw the famous 9000 year lease for the brewery, saw how the beer is brewed, learned about some of their past and present advertising and of course had a proper tasting, followed by our complimentary pint in the top level Gravity Bar – with the view! I learned how to pour and drink it properly but am not a beer convert!

We then moved on to the Jameson Distillery on Bow Street.  Here we had a guided tour of the triple distilling that makes Jameson so smooth.  We learned about the origins and process, had a tasting comparing three kinds of whiskey – first, without knowing what they were.  The first was the Jameson, the second was Scotch – we later found out it was Johnny Walker Black, and the third was Jack Daniels. The purpose was not to say that one is better than the other, but simply to point out the differences in taste.  After the tour, we had complimentary drinks.  I took my Jameson with ginger ale and lime.  Pretty good for someone who never drinks whiskey!

Then it was on to our pub crawl.  Shary had done the research and chose the top 4 bars in Dublin for us to visit.  We started at the Brazen Head where we had drinks and a pub lunch.

We then moved on to the Temple Bar (since 1840), which is in an area that is called – the Temple Bar!  And it is full of bars, bands, singing, etc.  We had drinks and joined in the singing. The Temple Bar is the pub with the largest collection of whiskies in Ireland (over 500) and the pub with the largest selection of pub sandwiches (over 100) anywhere in the world.  They have also been awarded the title of “Traditional Music Pub of the Year” every year dating back to 2002.

Our last stop was the Palace Bar – we didn’t have time for the 4th one if we wanted to make it back to the ship.

We had a great time, and even though rain was in the forecast and a few drops fell in the morning, the day was glorious as they say in Ireland!

We walked past the famous Trinity College.  Here are some of the Saturday sights in Dublin – we will be back!

And, of course, a couple of signs:

Here’s the beautiful lighthouse as we sail out of Dublin.