Diving through Dublin, PT.2
After a full, well half night’s rest, we had a busy day ahead of us. We started by hopping in our tour bus to drive more through Dublin, to make our way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. To say the least, it was stunning, there were amazing beautiful sunlight-stained glass windows, arches, and very regal-looking pews. After walking around on our own to explore the rest of the church and gardens, we had some free time to spend in the city of Dublin.
Our tour bus dropped us off at a center point and everyone split up to do their own activities. A few of us joined together to book a tour of the Book of Kells and also see Trinity College. My main goal, however, and if you are a book lover, you will appreciate this, was the Long Room in the Old Library. It was eye-watering inducing. I teared up the minute I walked in, at how stunning the room was. It is filled from floor to ceiling with books, old historical beautiful books. It looks straight out of a movie and I could not believe I was seeing this in person. It was truly the happiest moment on the trip.
After gushing over books for a bit, we almost forgot we had a tour booked at the Jameson Distillery and with no transportation, we had to haul our butts over to the tour ASAP. We walked all the back to our hotel as it was closest to the distillery. We had just made our tour reservation time and embarked on a tasting.
The tour guides detailed the background of Jameson and how the company came to be, and we got to taste and smell the different types of aged alcohol. After the historical background, they lead you to a circled room with stations for test tastes of different kinds of Jameson. It was a 40-minute experience and at the end, you are led to the gift shop where you can get a custom-labeled Jameson bottle.
After this tasting, we also had a tour group planned trip to visit the Guinness factory. We rushed from our Jameson tasting to the Guinness area and the tour is self-guided throughout the factory. It leads you through the background and history, the phases of the different Guinness Harps, and ultimately leads you to your very own Guinness tasting. Here is where you can see professionally trained Guinness pourers and get to witness the color change of the beer. This may be controversial to say, but I am not a fan of Guinness. It was too dark for me and unfortunately, I did not finish my free drink, but I did get a picture to share.
Stay tuned for the rest of the Ireland cities I was able to explore, Kilkenny, Killarney, Cliffs of Moher, and the Aran Islands.
