Ireland

It's hard to believe that we left for Dublin a little over three weeks ago to mark the beginning of our two-week spring break! 

Dublin was one of the most surprising cities to us, in both positive and negative ways. I think we both expected more of a historical atmosphere, but we actually found more of a modern, everyday city. Although Dublin is Ireland's biggest city, it really is not as big as you'd think. It's interesting because you can walk 10 minutes outside the city center and find more of a "small town" vibe -- like this cute alleyway we walked by with laundry hanging out to dry.

Our first major stop in Dublin was the Guinness Storehouse, which I'm pretty sure is the main brewery for Guinness in the world. They have made it into a total tourist destination where you can walk through and see how Guinness is made... and of course you can taste-test different beers. :) 

Neither Jordan or I are big fans of Guinness (to put it bluntly, we both think it's gross), but it was actually a really neat experience to find out step-by-step how their beer is made. At the very end of the tour, you end up in a circular bar made of solid windows overlooking the entire city of Dublin.

The Irish take a lot of pride in their Guinness, especially since it was founded in Dublin! And no, don't worry, these are not our empty glasses. :) 

As we were walking away from the Storehouse, we turned around and saw this view and had to laugh. Please tell me you see the irony...?!

Next we visited the historical jail in Dublin, called the Kilmainham Gaol. Good luck with that pronunciation! Again, like the Guinness Storehouse, this wasn't something I was that excited about going into it, but it turned out to be absolutely fascinating. This jail is hundreds of years old and played a big role in Ireland's revolution by holding prisoners who later became major leaders there. This is a picture of one of the old wings of the jail.

This is the "new wing" of the jail, which totally reminded me of the jail in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. I know it sounds a little creepy, but it was so interesting walking through this jail and learning about the conditions the prisoners lived in here.

The next day we went on a full-day tour to see the famous Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are actually on the opposite side of Ireland from where we were, so it took us literally all day to get there and back. We had a great recommendation from Theresa Donovan McCollum for this tour, and it was definitely worth every penny... thanks, Theresa! :)

We made a pit stop before arriving at the Cliffs of Moher to walk around this huge rock shoreline that used to be covered by the ocean before the tectonic plates split. Or something like that...

This was our transportation for the trip! The tour we took was through Paddywagon Tours, which was a great way to see a good chunk of Ireland.

We finally arrived at the Cliffs of Moher, and we were absolutely blown away. I wish my pictures did them justice -- they are breathtaking and so massive! At the tallest point they are 750 feet tall. 

There is a castle on one of the main points of the cliff -- you can barely make it out in this picture.

We hiked all along the cliffs...

7-Up is actually doing a campaign in Ireland to try and get the Cliffs of Moher to become one of the natural wonders of the world. There are signs EVERYWHERE in Ireland about it. 

To see the rest of our pictures from the Cliffs of Moher, click here.

The only drawback of doing the organized day tour was that I didn't get to take any good pictures of the Irish countryside. I can't even tell you how beautiful and GREEN it is. There are fields after fields of solid green, filled with sheep, separated by old rock walls and fences -- it is exactly what you'd picture Ireland to look like. I seriously almost faked an illness to get our tour guide to pull the bus over so I could take some pictures! :)

In my desperate attempt to get a picture of a green field, I got this one, which was near the Cliffs of Moher.

Our last day in Dublin we explored the city, and wandered down to the trendy Temple Bar area where we got to enjoy some live traditional Irish music. 

All in all, Dublin was not our number one favorite city. We definitely enjoyed our time there, and absolutely LOVED our trip to see the Cliffs of Moher and the Irish countryside, but we decided that the best way to do Ireland would be a big road trip around the country stopping for a day or two in each city. Dublin was fun and the people there were really friendly (and had the coolest accents!), but it was outrageously overpriced and lacked any character we thought it might have. This makes me believe Dublin is probably not an accurate portrayal of the rest of Ireland!

To see all of our pictures from Dublin, click here.

P.S. I am trying my best to get caught up on the blog, so don't be surprised if there are multiple posts in the next few days. :)