Saturday

After a night drinking Guinness the time of starting a new activity is direct proportional with the number of beers drunken. We prepared a tasty omlet and went to discover the city.

The first stop was at the Guinness storehouse. This place explains everything you want about the famous beer. The brewery was set up in 1759 by Arthur Guinness and became well known in the whole world. The museum modeled on a giant pint glass ends with the Gravity Bar, a place were every visitor is rewarded with a Guinness beer in a 360 degree view of Dublin.

I left that place and i went walking forward towards the Irish Museum of Modern Art.  The old building which houses the museum was initially a hospital for the old soldiers (1680). I visited only one small gallery because the rest of the museum was closed and i admired the exterior of the building inspired by Les Invalides in Paris.

The museum has a large garden which ends very close to the Kilmainham Gaol Museum. Here one cand see the jail where Irish heroes were imprisoned. I just saw the bulding from the exterior and i went forward. The prisons are not really my target.

The next point of interest i visited was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest cathedral in Ireland. It dates from the 12 th century and has a neo-gothic architecture.It houses the remains of Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travel.

Near the cathedral is Dublinia, an exhibition of the medieval Dublin’s period which recreates the past of Dublin a few hundred years ago .

From this point i’ve lost myself on the medieval streets of the city center, visiting libraries, tourist shops, open air markets, admiring bulidings, pubs and restaurants, getting lost in the crowd. When i finally arrived at Dublin’s Castle it was closed so i only admired its exterior.

Sunday

After i consulted a map i decided to start visiting the north of the Liffey river.

On the other side of O’Connell Bridge dominates The Spire of Dublin, the “Monument of Light” and the tallest sculpture in the world.  Not very far one can visit Dublin Writer’s Museum.  It dispays the Irish literature and lives and works of Irish writers such as : Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, G.B.Shaw, Jonathan Swift, W.B.Yeats, Samuel Beckett etc. I spent a nice time there. 

On the way back I admireed the Dublin’s famous Georgian doors built in  the 1700s , colourful and full of joy. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of these pretty doors. Here are some of them.

I reserved the other half of the day to Dublin’s parks and nature.  St.Stephen’s Green park is very popular among the Dubliners who come here for picnic or feed the ducks and swans. Merrion Square hides another beautiful park, wellknown for the Oscar Wilde’s statue.

My visit finished excellent with a trip in Bray, a seaside town situated about 20 km south of Dublin on the coast. I had a beautiful walk with wonderful views on a cloudy weather. A calm atmosphere near the see  reminded me why i prefer the silent small villages to the crowded cities.

 Irish Quotations:

“Money can’t buy friends but you can get a better class of enemy.”

“I’m an athiest, thank God.”

“The Irish climate is wonderful, but the weather ruins it.”

“An Irish politician is a man of few words but he uses them often.”

Oscar Wilde:

“I can resist everything except temptations.”

“There is no sin except stupidity.”

“I have nothing to declare except my genius”

“The old believe everything, the middle age suspect everything, the young know everything.”