Dublin, Ireland 20.09.25

 Travel day: Sat 20th Sept.

3am and set off to the airport, nice and early as always. Unfortunately I'm still feeling a bit unwell from last weekend but got to keep moving! Only an hour flight from Stansted so not too bad for the early morning, landed in Dublin around 9.45 and managed to find our coach reasonably easy, €10 each single into the city centre. We arrived a bit too early to check in at the hotel but managed to drop our stuff off and go out for a walk round the city.

We didn't really have much of a plan, we just found ourselves walking around. Went into a few sports shops and then stumbled across Temple Bar. It wasn’t our plan to go there today but we were there we thought we may as well, had the obligatory pictures for insta of course, walked in then out as it was rammed! 

We hadn't eaten yet and it was now 14.00 and we were starving. We didn't want anything too ‘proper’ so managed to find a place with loaded fries and burgers called Fat Phil's Diner, bloody expensive here in Ireland though! €59 for 2 loaded fries and a burger each, ok we did order a lot as we were so hungry but €59!! Not only that but after we of course had to go and have a proper Guinness so we went into The Quays pub near the temple bar. Now the Guinness was banging, of course best I've had, however, bloody €9.70 for a bloody pint!! Just one it is then, can't get over how much it costs but when in Rome…..(Dublin) 😂.

Now around 15.30, we were pretty shattered and both just wanted to lay down and rest for a bit so we walked the 20mins back to the hotel, checked in, showered and slept for an hour or so before watching the United V Chelsea game, thankfully the luck of watching from another country seems to work as we won 2.1 so the good day continued! We did have explored and early night as we are up again at 5.45am ready for our day tour tomorrow.

Day 1 - Sunday 21st Sept.

Packed and ready for our day trip to Belfast, Giants Causeway, Dunluce Castle, Dark Hedges and then back to Dublin.

We had to meet at the Molly Malone statue at 6.55am.

First stop: Dunluce Castle.

Lovely views, just down the road from Portrush and the famous golf course, was lovely walking round, we had 30mins to do so before we had to be back in the coach which was plenty of time, the castle and the views were stunning was so nice walking round, was nice and sunny too until just before we was getting back in the bus when it hammered it down for about 2 minutes.

Second stop:  Giants Causeway.

Lots of walking around the coastline to giants causeway, very windy but what a view! We had a second of rain but was so lucky the Sun came out. We even had time for a Guinness before getting back on the bus to our next stop for food!

Third stop: Fullerton Arms

Lunch time! Beef & Guinness pie with chips for lunch, was bloody lovely, certainly recommend eating if this tour was something you do!

Fourth stop: Dark Hedges 

Bit disappointing really as it really is just some trees, don't get me wrong it does look lovely but meh, I wasn't really bothered by it.

Last stop: Belfast city centre.

Only had an hour here so was a bit of a rush but we managed to find brewdog, got our stamp and a quick pint before making our way back to the coach, there are some lovely buildings around, especially the city hall, looked really nice in the sun as well, also has a statue to commemorate the people/workers who died in titanic, gutted we didn't have longer to walk around but still enjoyed it.

Back to the coach at 17.30 for the 2 hr drive back to Dublin.Dropped off at around 7.30pm with a 25 min walk back to the hotel but we also needed to find somewhere to eat as we were hungry again by now. Near the hotel we found a really small Indian street food place called Hyderabadi kitchen, we had butter chicken curry and chicken biryani and it was so good, we would certainly go back again! We were absolutely shattered by then and went back to the hotel and went straight to sleep.

Day 2 - Monday 22nd Sept.

We tried to have a bit of a lie in but were still up and out by 10. We found a nice little pub called O’Donoghues to have a full Irish breakfast before heading up to the Guinness brewery, along the way we stopped at Dublin castle which was nothing like what i expected it to be, was more like a few official building rather than a castle but was still nice to stop and have a little walk round the grounds, we didn’t pay to go inside as that was another 8 euro to do so.

We made the half hour walk upto Guinness and managed to get there at 12 which was an hour before our ticket time but they let us go through early which was handy as it meant we didn’t need to hang around for ages. The tour took around 45 minutes and you were given a free ticket for a Guinness up in the 360 rooftop bar which was pretty cool.

Once we finished at Guinness we started the long walk all the way to the other side of the city centre to find Brewdog, was an hour walk so I wasn't sure about it going but what the hell we may as well. Along the way we came across a tattoo shop that accepts walk-ins so we said sod it let's get our tattoos done! Totally spontaneous decision and what do we have to lose! That took around an hour by the time they were all set up and ready to go so it gave us a bit of a rest on our way to Brewdog.

All done and dusted we carried on as originally planned was a pretty simple walk as was just a straight path all the way. Chilled drink, by the water at Brewdog, was nice but started to get a bit chilly so we decided to leave and make our way back, by this time it was about 17.00 and we was hungry so wanted to find somewhere that served traditional irish stew.

We looked on trip advisor and found a pub called Lincoln's inn which had a really good rating and wasn’t too expensive, was an 8 min walk from where we had already walked to on our way back. Was a very good choice too, the pub was lovely, oldy waldy inside and the food was amazing! The Irish stew was so yummy and Chris had a Thai red curry which he also really enjoyed.

We got back to the hotel at around 8.30/9pm and were absolutely shattered. We had walked over 24,000 steps today and were soooo ready for bed, quick shower and sleep time!

Day 3 - Home day - Tuesday 23rd Sept

Check out was at 11.00am, we were up at 9.30 and went down for some breakfast, I guess that Keavens port being a wetherspoons was good as at least we managed to get a cheaper brekkie before we left. We caught our coach back to the airport at 11.49 and were there, a few drinks and chilled all in prep for our 17.00 flight home.

We landed at 18.00 and was home by 20.30. Another amazing trip completed and country number 35.

Next stop Jamaica 20.11.25