Earlier this month I travelled to Dublin for 2 days with Ryanair. I had never been to Ireland and was looking forward to visiting their capital.
I booked the flights through the Ryanair website, which was running a special offer: the flights cost me 1 pence each way plus 2 pounds 40 credit card charge. It cost me less than the train ticket to the airport! Now, what you’ve got to realise is that Ryanair is a low cost airline, and as such they treat you like shit. The customer service is nil, and the seats are dirty (got chewing gum on my jeans). When they call the flight every-one rushes to the front like a rugby scrum. But I only paid 1 pence so couldn’t complain; and the flight lasted only an hour. If you want a decent airline fly with BA. Think of Ryanair like a public bus; they even have adverts on the walls.
I didn’t have any luggage as they charge extra, and I had checked-in online. So when I arrived at the airports I went straight to security then to the gate. No queueing at check-in. And at the other end I strolled straight to arrivals, no waiting for bags to appear.
So after a stress-free arrival at Dublin I boarded a shuttle bus that took me into the city centre. I got off the bus at Trinity College and as it was lunchtime went looking for a McDonalds.
I found one on Grafton Street and after working out how much a Big Mac Meal cost, I was shocked it was so much more expensive than in London. Grafton Street has all the major shops, which are all British. It was just like being back in England with all those store names, but as I was to later discover, Dublin is British.
I wandered around a bit, checked out Temple Bar and the river, and was disappointed the Temple Bar area was so small. It’s just a few pubs around a few streets, and the restaurants are only burger joints. I was expecting something like London’s Soho, which it was not. It was extremely humid and busy. Listening to voices I couldn’t hear any Irish ones, it was full of Europeans. Mainly students.
I dumped my bags at the hotel, Holiday Inn on Pearse Street. The room was basic but had everything I needed. There was a sofa, 2 arm chairs, and a TV. The Irish channels had British shows, and the other channels were BBC or Sky.
I went for a walk around O’Connell Street, and back to Temple Bar for the evening. I stopped off at pubs along the way, sampling the local pub culture and enjoying the live musicians: a guitarist then a man with what looked like bagpipes but wasn't. Dinner was at a family burger bar.
The next day the sun was out and I took the 30 minute walk to the Guinness Storehouse. It was just a museum of Guinness beer. I was expecting to see the beer being made live so was a bit disappointed. The best bit of the whole tour was at the end when they give you a free pint at the bar at the top of the building while you look out over the city.
A hop-on-hop-off tour bus greeted me as I left the museum and I hopped on. This took me around the houses, along Maine Road, and into the traffic jam of O’Connell Street. The traffic wasn’t moving so I got off. And after lunch at a burger bar for office workers, I boarded the airport bus back for my flight.
An enjoyable couple of days, it is easy to just chill out in this city.
