Dublin for Thanksgiving 2012: Exploring Dublin

• Introduction
• AUS-SFO-IAD 
• Exploring Washington DC
• IAD - BRU - DUB
• Conrad Dublin
• Hilton Dublin 
• Exploring Dublin
• DUB - FRA - IAH
• IAH - LAX on 787 and back home to Austin

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With only a day and a half in Dublin, we made to visit what was important to us - booze and fish & chips. We were somewhat tired on the day we arrived and took is easy by just exploring the nearby Grafton Street and Temple Bar area. The weather was being nice to us with the sun out despite of the cold temperature. Later at night, we had prebooked a pub crawl but there were not enough people to run the tour. Would have appreciated them informing us earlier though.

 

After a hearty Irish buffet breakfast at the hotel, our second day started off with a tour of the Old Jameson distillery. The tour lasted about an hour where we walked through the original distillery with the enthusiastic guide explaining the process of making whiskey and making sure to highlight that Jameson whiskey's are tripe distilled giving it the extra smooth taste. I was one of the lucky guest of the tour to be able to compare Jameson whiskey against Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. I must say that Jameson whiskey came up on top. All other guests were given a Jameson drink at the end of the tour.

Whiskey Tasting

Next up was the world famous Guinness brewery tour. I've done my fair share of brewery tours before and this tour was a let down. There was no personal guide and although some of the exhibits were interesting, we were just speeding through the tour to get to the bar up top for some Guinness. 

We love British fish & chips. Besides Australia, we've not found anywhere else that serves thick cut of cod that's battered and fried till crispy brown. We tried a couple of places in Dublin and our favorite was Leo Burdock in the Temple Street area. Yum...

One and a half day was just nice for Dublin itself. We hope to be back in the future where we would like to get out of the city to see the Irish coast and other sights.