It was our first time in Ireland and I really had no idea what to expect. Against all better judgement, I kept going back to the stereotypes: ultra-green hills covered in clover and Leprechauns hiding in the bushes. We saw none of that.

Our ship was anchored offshore, which meant hopping in the little orange tender boats to go to shore. Once there, we hopped a bus and discovered something really unusual: our tour group only had eight people in it.

It would’ve just been six, except Rob and I went down a few minutes early and the guy who assigns the busses bumped us up into the earlier group, putting us on the last bus in the early group rather than the first bus in the later group. Fine by us!

We drove through an area called Blackrock, which is right on the coast by the pier. Their signature symbol is this piece of art with three naked half-starved way-too-skinny people holding up a big black rock.

From there, it was into Dublin City proper, where traffic got a bit sketchy due to it being rush hour and all. We drove through the upperclass neighbourhood with the fancy houses and I was surprised to see that many of them were still duplexes.

We passed a statue of Oscar Wilde, one of Dublin’s famous sons.

We passed The Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub: established in the year 1198. So that pub was already a few hundred years old before Columbus even set sail.

Speaking of pubs, Guinness is everywhere here. No wonder, since the brewery is right here in town.

A much prettier building is St Patrick’s Cathedral, which we were able to admire from outside the bus.

Then it was off to Phoenix Park, a huge chunk of public park that’s bigger than Centra Park in New York City. There, we saw Ashtown Castle. Now before you get all excited, let me show you the castle:

No, really. That’s it.

It did have some pretty gardens around it, though.

As we left Phoenix Park, we passed the president’s house, which our guide said “looked like the White House”. Um… no.

Our guide never stopped talking. Ever. I was over her schtick about five minutes into the 3+ hour tour and kept hoping that she had an ‘off’ button somewhere, but if she did, she didn’t use it.

Back into town and some nice examples of various architectural styles for us to see. There were lots of Georgian, Victorian, and older styles in the city. The red brick buildings were especially nice.

Eventually, we had a half-hour stop to look around the area before heading back to the ship. I couldn’t take any more of the play-by-play by the guide, so I opted to stay in town for awhile and catch the shuttle bus back to the ship later. I headed for the shopping district, which began with this interesting building:

The stores inside were standard fare, so I headed back outside to Grafton Street, the main shopping street. It reminded me a lot of the shopping streets in Copenhagen.

It’s mostly pedestrians in the street here with lots of shops on both sides.

There’s even a Lego store here with a minifigure creator machine. I gave the little guy a “heart Dublin” shirt with shamrocks on the back. I couldn’t find any suitable hair pieces or even a leprechaun hat, though, so I opted for bunny ears. Whatever.

The best Lego stuff wasn’t at the store, though. It was at the National Library of Ireland, which is housed in this impressive building.

In the lobby of that building, there’s an also-impressive model of it made from more than 120,000 Lego bricks.

Then it was time to hop the shuttle back to the ship. I loved all the old buildings, but I also liked the one modern building I saw near the harbour. It houses Ireland Lights, the folks who operate all the lighthouses in the country.

And that’s all from Ireland. Tomorrow is an at-sea day, so we’re taking it easy and doing as little as possible.

On to Dover and Canterbury!

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