For Lee's Birthday surprise on Saturday me and my parents took him to Dublin for the day to explore. I managed to find the return flights on Skyscanner for £30.58 per person which I thought was really good! We woke up at 2.45am to get to Stansted airport. We stopped in the Wetherspoons for a breakfast (and a Guinness for the boys as they got excited for Ireland) before boarding the plane at 6.30am.
When we arrived at Dublin airport at 7.55am our first port of call was Kilmainham Gaol. This was about 40 euros in a taxi but split between 4 of us would have been about the same as getting a bus and took us half the time. This 18th century jail is now a museum which you can have a guided tour around. The tour guides are brilliant and provide you with a lot of information and facts about the jail and previous prisoners. The tour starts in the holding cells where you meet your guide and are then walked through to the chapel for your first part of the tour. As the walls are made from limestone, the original section of the prison is cold and eerie but also very interesting. I would definitely recommend this trip - the best 8 euros I've spent!
After the Jail we took a walk down to where the Guinness Storehouse is, stopping in a pub we found along the way for lunch. This was called JK Stoutmans and was a really friendly pub. The owner couldn't do enough for us and the lunch was really nice and reasonably priced. When we first walked in it looked like a little family run bar and seemed quite small and quirky. It was only upon finishing our lunch and speaking to the owner that we realised out the back they had a 500 person live music venue. When we walked through to see, it was a major WOW factor! The way it was designed and the layout was so cool and I would have loved to come down here for an evening of drinks and music.
From the pub we then went to our 1:30 time slot for the Guinness Storehouse. This is a must do whilst in Dublin (we didn't wait for the tour guide but I have been advised it is much better with the guide). It costs 20 euros per person for entry which includes a free pint of Guinness (choose wisely where you claim this pint as its fun to be able to pour your own pint on one of the upper floors). When you first start the tour, you go through the process on how Guinness is made and what ingredients are used. There is lots of information to read, video screens to watch and things to look at over the first couple of floors (they even had some photo booths for a funny photo or two). We then went up to the academy where you learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness and get a certificate to take home (I must say that mine was spot on with no spillage - result!) You can then take your pint of Guinness up to the sky bar where there are 360 degree views of Dublin. It was quite sunny when we went and got very hot up there so we didn't stay too long. Instead we went back down a floor to an Irish bar where there was a band playing and a very lively atmosphere. We stayed in here for a little while before leaving to start our bus tour of the city.
We booked the CityScape hop on hop off bus tour - but as we were pressed for time we decided just to stay on the bus and have a tour of the city. There was lots of information given to us on the tour and the bus driver was very entertaining but in regards to seeing the city - we didn't really feel there was much to see as most of it was just buildings that you would need to go inside to get the benefits and history of them so I feel the tour would have been better if you actually hopped on and off and went into the museums etc. We also chose to sit on the open top deck to see more and be able to take photos but it was so cold up here we ended up getting off the bus before the end of the tour as we were freezing and unhappy by this point (my dad even fell asleep but we had been up for a long time by now). We found a little bar called No 10 st. Stephens Green which was very modern and glamourous. I ordered a cup of tea as I was so cold and it come out as a pot of tea with a china cup and a little jar of sugar and matching jug of milk which was cute! We finished our drinks in here and jumped into a taxi back to the airport which came to just over 20 euros.
Overall I really enjoyed Dublin. The people are friendly, there is a good atmosphere and the city is buzzing (even out of season). I would love to come back here to experience the night life and it would be such a good place to go on a hen/stag do.