Saturday morning finally the rain had stopped. Actually the weather announced a mix of sun and clouds and it turned out to be true! Yeah, great way to start the day when a day-trip was planned. Here is my view out of the window and you can see the sunshine in all its glory.
And that was it for most of the morning. Ah never mind, we had a long day ahead of us and more sunshine to come.
We had agreed on a day-trip to Howth a small coastal village to the north-east of Dublin which is located on an half-island. To get there we needed to take either the DART (a train) or the bus. We settled on the train in the end since we found no time-table for the bus.
To get to the train station we needed to cross the Liffey and get to the north side of the city (or so we thought, these guide books are really not so helpful in the end. There were of course nearer stations to our hotel). We used this chance to explore the city on the North side and find some place for breakfast. I took some pictures along the way, so please enjoy.
Dublin also has a tram which astonished me.
Another shopping street on the north side with lots of Christmas decoration. The Irish seem to take Christmas very serious, especially the window decorations all over the city!
A busker out early who played good music (definitely worth supporting)!
Some more impressions from along the way.
The entrance to a butcher shop.
The Charles Stewart Parnell statue on O’Connell Street.
Please note how the arc of the harp is on the left side. It had to be on the left side because Guinness already had the harp as its emblem showing to the right. And since Guinness was founded in 1759 and Ireland got its independence in 1921, guess who had the older rights?
Finally we saw the Spire of Dublin close up.
And one of Dublin’s most famous citizen James Joyce
When we at last stopped for breakfast around the corner from the Connolly train station there were not a lot of inviting places around. We settled on a small café which had exactly two kinds of toasts and something like a mille-feuille. Of course we tried it but it was nothing to rave over.
The coffee on the other hand was excellent and after a second round we were ready to leave the city.
Yours, Pollybert
