Month: August 2024

After our tours of Jameson and Guinness, plus all the walking that we did, we worked up an appetite. The snow turned into rain and it was cold for sure. Not far from Guinness we found Tom Kennedys. This was a cute little restaurant that offered great Irish comfort food. An Irish coffee was needed to warm up. It was perfect! A great afternoon pick-up. On a cold day like today, homemade stew sounded perfect. The Beef & Guinness Stew was just what I needed. It was a classic recipe with tender pieces of beef and big chunks of potatoes.…

The Guinness Brewery was founded in 1759 by Arthur Guinness. He became famous for the 9,000-year lease that he signed for this brewery. The first thing I thought of when we got to Guinness was the look of the gates. It’s like walking up to the entrance of Willie Wonka’s factory. As I walked through those gates and looked at the inside of the building, it was confirmed to me that this was exactly like the Wonka factory. There were stairs crisscrossing and going in every direction. Each floor offered something unique to look at. There was a floor designated…

As part of the tour that we were doing, we got to stop by The Brazen Head to grab a quick pint. It is not far from the Guinness Brewery and Christchurch Cathedral. This is Dublin’s oldest pub. There is a debate on whether this pub or Sean’s Bar in Athlone is the oldest. Either way it is cool that we got to go to both on the trip. Since I was enjoying red ales while I was in Ireland, I decided to try another one from an Irish brewery. This was called Rye River Red Ale. It had a…

We were very excited to be doing a tour of the Jameson Distillery. If you love whiskey, I highly recommend this tour. (jamesonwhiskey.com/en-us/visit-our-distilleries/jameson-bow-street-distillery-tour/ ) The tour started with a welcome cocktail. There were 3 options: The Jameson Orange mixed with the Sprite was astounding. I never knew they made orange whiskey. I was sweet and the Sprite added the right amount of bubbles. As we enjoyed our cocktails, our tour guide, Sean, was sharing an Irish story, which was very entertaining. The Irish have a long history of storytelling. It was our turn to start the official tour. We went…

It was time for dinner in Dublin. Everywhere was busy. We were able to find a table big enough for our party at Lundy Foot’s. We were seated next to the area where a gentleman was playing guitar. It was a great seat because he was really entertaining. The menu had so many delicious options to choose from. We started with the cauliflower bites for the table to share. They were crispy, big pieces of cauliflower. They served a yummy buttermilk blue cheese mayo and a pineapple hot sauce for dipping. I ordered the Beef and Guinness Pie. They braised…

One of the most famous bars in Dublin is Temple Bar. You can check them out on Earth Cam. There are cameras set up inside and outside of the bar. All the activities are live-streamed. It was cool to check out. We could see everyone waving to the cameras and then looking at their phones to see themselves. Our group did the same thing. Another reason to visit the bar is the live music. The Irish band that was preforming was fantastic. They preformed some classic Irish music as well as modern favorites that the entire crowd loved. Everyone was…

We made it back to Dublin because the weekend traffic got too bad. We got all checked into the hotel and said goodbye to Mike and Ella. This was the end of the Exoticca portion of the tour. However, we still had the rest of the afternoon and all of the next day to enjoy the city on our own. We decided to head back down to the Temple Bar area. We enjoyed this area from our tour and wanted to spend more quality time there. The area is filled with restaurants and bars to check out. We really wanted…