The main reason why I said “Yes” to this last destination is that one of my favorite movies is P.S. I Love You. I thought to myself, “Maybe I’ll find my Gerry here.” So I decided to place Ireland on our travel list. Honestly, I don’t regret a thing.
Our flight arrived at the International Dublin Airport around 7:30 a.m. and we waited until 9 a.m. to start heading to the city. Our Air BNB wasn’t going to be ready for us to check-in until 12 p.m.
Tip: Dublin Airport offers bus rides to the city for reasonable prices!
We arrived in the city about 20-30 minutes later and were strolling our carry-on bags through the streets trying to find a breakfast place we had decided on. Finally, we got there and made it just in time to snag a table. It was weird to have our bags with us while we were at this restaurant/cafe, but we were tourists so people just had to deal. Honestly, the food we had wasn’t too crazy, but it was good and very simple. Trust me, the views in this country are way better!
We managed to buy metro passes to our Air BNB and checked-in a little ahead of time still, and met our hostess. She was very kind and was just finishing up some cleaning for our stay. We left our bags and decided to explore the neighborhood since it was about 10-15 minutes from the main city area. We loved just walking around and looking at the intricate details that some places had and how the houses sometimes varied from street to street. One interesting thing that we noticed and later on learned about on a tour was that everyone’s door was a different solid color. Apparently, during King George’s time, they made all the houses look alike and expected them to be aesthetically pleasing for the city. To rebel against this uniformity, residents painted their doors bright colors to push individuality.
We were trying to figure out what place we could hang out by and Sophia saw on her GPS that we were close to the Jameson Distillery. We decided since this was a place that we definitely wanted to visit, why not do it now if we were so close. We made our way there and bought tickets for the next tour/class. I recommend taking a tour here. I learned so much about whiskey and got to have a glass myself at the end. I compared whiskeys and learned about the history as well. Side note: I love Jameson Whiskey so it was also very exciting for me haha!
We walked back to our air BNB, ordered some Chinese food, bought some cooking things and settled for the evening. We took the rest of the day to rest, watch Netflix and enjoy some good Rosé.
We woke up early the next morning to catch our tour bus! Our itinerary included: The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren and Galway.
Keep in mind this is the only tour we decided to take throughout our European adventure. We had a pit stop before we reached the Cliffs of Moher and visited … *drum roll* … The Barack Obama Plaza! The town this it’s in is called Moneygall.
Fun Fact: Barack Obama’s mom has ancestors from Ireland. They tracked down his ancestry line and found a sketch of one of his ancestors. They presented him with it and a certificate of renaming the plaza after him. There’s a picture and everything here. I literally laughed because it was just too funny, but it was very sweet for the Irish to do that.
Afterwards, we proceeded to the Cliffs and we were warned to stay to the right part of the cliffs because the winds were blowing west I believe. So if you stood on the left side you could possibly be blown off the cliff and die. Ha! I got some pretty neat-o pictures below:
This place was just so beautiful I couldn’t get enough! The beauty of Ireland and the genuine personalities of the Irish made me fall in love with this place.
We later left to the Burren to see that it was just miles of rocks… haha but it was tricky to walk on! Here is where Sophia’s international cell phone mysteriously disappeared. It was a sad moment, but we still ventured on. We also saw some cows, goats and castles on our ride!
We heard a funny story about fairies on our way to Galway. People wanted to build some type of bridge or walkway in some area in Ireland, but some guy said no one could disturb the land because it had a fairy tree. Now, this of course was crazy talk because this took place about some years ago and who still believes in fairies?! Some traditional Irish dudes also agreed that the fairy tree was legit and they shouldn’t disturb the land. This situation went to so many courthouses that finally they brought the problem to the U.N.!
U.N.: We are dealing with a religious war and global problems! We can’t decide if you should remove your fairy tree or not!
Ireland: Well, then I guess we have to build somewhere else.
And that’s the story. We passed by the tree really fast so I couldn’t take a picture, but yes, it was small, and no fairies were seen.
Galway was a colorful and beautiful place known as “The Venice of the West.” It was small but there was so much history in it. Our tour guide shared some stories of some of the buildings and who lived in some places. We did some souvenir shopping, saw a band playing in the street, and enjoyed our moments there. I definitely recommend taking this tour by Wild Rover Tours, they also have other tours that explore other parts of Ireland during your stay in Dublin.
We made our way back to Dublin, took a good nap and prepped for a night out! We made some friends and danced the night away till 3 a.m.! Highlight of the night? I was in the same bar where Gerry sang Galway Girl to Holly!
Day 3:
We bought some tickets to visit the Book of Kells at Trinity College. Learned some incredible things about it, I recommend visiting the college and seeing the book!
Fun Fact: The Book of Kells is a manuscript that contains the four Gospels of the Bible written by Irish monks in Latin. The coolest part? It’s all written on calfskin and the color ink on all the pages was handmade from minerals and oils.
We ventured to the Guinness Factory for the last tour of the day! It was a little rushed but I fell in love with both the beer and the views at the end. People are not lying when they say that Guinness is delicious when you have it in Ireland because it’s made there!
We then ventured off to get some fast food and prep for our last European night out. Our taxi driver recommended to not hit Temple Bar (a well-known bar of Dublin) because it was too touristy and very expensive. We ended up at the “Ryan’s” bar and listened to a live band while sipping on some Guinness and whiskey gingers. We made friends with some locals and went out to a nearby club! Again, we danced all night and left at 2 a.m. for our 10 a.m. flight back to the states.
Here is where my two-week vacation ends. My European rendezvous has not finished yet! After this trip, Sophia and I decided we will travel every year. We will make time. If there is anything that I learned on this trip is that there is a much bigger world out there filled with so many more people I have yet to meet. Traveling is my passion and I’m going to make it happen. We have already begun tossing around ideas and will make a ticket purchase soon. So, stay tuned for more travels around the world! ❤
Voyage Checklist 