#bdtravlin Ireland

Putting my love for Ireland into words ain’t easy my friends. My entire life I have longed for this place. I tried to learn to play the Tin Whistle. I bought maps of the country and poured over them for hours. I emailed kayak shops along the coast when I graduated college, offering to move and work for them, (they pretty much all thought I was nuts). For some reason, it took me until May 7, 2016 before I finally touched down. The moment we arrived I knew that all those years of longing were spent on the right place. I could barely handle my happy.

We spend almost a week and decided that since we already knew we would be coming back (no doubt about it) we didnt have to cram every single thing into our short time. We decided to see the absolute must-do items and then come back with lots of time to discover more.

The must-do’s on our list were pretty basic:

See Sheep
The Cliffs of Moher
Dublin
Drink lots of pints with the locals
Hear live music in a pub
Guinness Storehouse

Easy peasy right? I also really really did not want to be locked into a schedule in order to allow room for magic, so we booked our hotels as needed. That’s kinda my travel philosophy but it’s also a huge stressor for Dan so we try to book a couple days in one place so he can relax and know what’s happening in the next fews days, but I don’t have to feel like my whole trip is locked in. It works for us most of the time.

In Dublin, we stayed at the Generator Hostel, which was way hipper than we are, thats fo sho. It was great because it was really close to the train and bus stops, making getting right into the center of things super easy. We visited the Guinness Storehouse first thing the first morning we were there because#obviously. I loved seeing the whole city from way up in the Gravity Bar at the top of the building. We’ve been to a lot of breweries so the story of “how to make beer” isn’t all that interesting but the story of Arthur Guinness was so it was still super fun.

We also went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. We also went to the National Gallery of Ireland, where one of my favorite paintings lives! They only show The Meeting on the Turret Stairs two times a week for 1 hour only because it is so delicate. Thankfully we were in Dublin on the right days so we planned our touristing around that. One evening we also went to Mulligans for a pint and it was dreams you guys… dreams.

The next days we headed over to the west coast to see the Cliffs of Moher. Along the way we stopped at Sean’s Bar, claiming to be the oldest pub in Ireland. Sounds good to me! We met some good folks there are stayed for hours, literally. Dan kept sober and got us to Galway where we went to sleep with an Irish band playing late into the night at the bar across from our hotel, (I loved it. Dan hated it). The Cliffs of Moher are just as incredible as you would imagine and they are a must do for sure. I loved the drive there from Galway. It’s so so PRETTY! We also just popped into a Castle along the way because when in Ireland, you drive by castles. Like you do.

All in all it was a dreamy trip and I was in heaven the entire time. I am still absolutely in love with the place and will be returning as much as humanly possible throughout my life. I wish I hadn’t taken to long to finally get to see it but it was definitely worth the wait.