2015.07.15/16 – Ottawa – Dublin (Ireland)

Leaving on a Wednesday evening flight to Dublin allowed us plenty of time to wrap up our luggage the previous weekend. We worked most of the day Wednesday but both Jenny and I were clearly on vacation mode and pretty much detached from work-related stuff. We left work at 1:20pm and drove home to pick-up Victoria and our luggage. We drove to Montreal and parked at ParkNFly lot. The airport was surprisingly very busy for a Wednesday evening. Our flight was uneventful. Upon on arrival at the Dublin airport, we inquired about the Dublin Coach – a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center. We waited only 15 mins to board this shuttle bus which dropped us close to our Dublin Ibis Hotel for 5 euros each. We learned this was still a cheaper option than taking the taxi even though our stop was the first one of the Dublin Coach’s route. The hotel staffs were quite nice to accommodate us for an early check-in at 11:00am. After settling into our room, we all needed a few hours of sleep especially with the rain falling continuously outside. We took some time to book our accommodation for our next itinerary destination. The accommodation in Galway appeared quite pricey to us. We realized early on that this would be a re-occurring concern throughout this trip. We managed to purchase online our train tickets to Galway thus avoiding a visit to the train station. With the help of our travel guide on our Kindle, we identified Dublin’s main tourist sights for our visit tomorrow. We had our evening meal at the hotel restaurant as there were very few options in the area. Everyone was happy to get back to bed for some more sleep. The weather was a bit of dreary and much cooler than our last Europe trip to Italy/Greece.

2015.07.17 – Dublin (Ireland)

Both Jenny and I woke up with a headaches. We enjoyed our hotel’s complementary buffet breakfast. The large automatic coffee machine impressed us by the way it produced very good brews of several types of coffee and hot chocolate. We left our hotel around 10:30am and walked to the LUAS (tram) Redcow station – the same place where our Dublin Coach had dropped us off the previous day. We bought at an automated machine our return tickets for 4.20 euros/pp. We enjoyed the modern LUAS tram to the downtown area (20 mins.). We started our visit of Dublin with the Trinity College tour which included a viewing of the famous Book of Kells. I convinced Jenny and Victoria to follow a self-guided walk described in our Lonely Planet travel guide book. We occasionally encountered a light rain fall. Along the way, we realized that our self-guided walk was actually a bar hopping walk or crawl. Nonetheless, we got to see bits of Griffon Street and Temple Bar district. We gave our legs a rest by stopping at a Starbucks for some coffee and Frapuchino. We decided to visit the famous Guinness Storefront museum. We discovered that LUAS was out of commission in our area. We had to walk to the next station before hopping on the tram again for one additional station. As we got off the LUAS, it started to rain again. We walked to the Guinness Storefront and queued for 15-20 minutes to buy our entrance tickets to the very elaborate beer museum. We got to try our hands at bar tending, sampling and drinking a Guinness. Victoria experienced her first taste of beer in a sampling shooter size glass. We took the LUAS back to the downtown area. We wandered into a Chinatown district and stopped for our evening meal at one of the many restaurants in the area. We were back on the LUAS at 10pm for our return ride to our hotel. We were pleased with our 12 hour visit of Dublin but also happy to shower and slip into bed.

2015.07.18 – Dublin – Galway (Ireland)

After having another great breakfast at the hotel, we left our first accommodation around 10:30am to catch a LUAS to the train station. We had a brief 30 minutes wait at the station for our 11:25am train to Galway. We boarded the train without any hassle, thanks to our reserved seats. During our ride, we chatted with an 83 year-old Irish lady from Dublin. She had lived in Canada for a few years before she married. The two hours ride went by pretty quickly, unfortunately it was not really restful as they were several rowdy passengers. At the train station in Galway, we took a short taxi ride to our Hotel Connacht – a 1.5km away from the city center. We needed to wait for over 1.5 hours for our 3:30pm check-in. Jenny was not very happy by our delayed check-in. As it rained heavily, we felt confined to our hotel’s restaurant for supper. We were all in bed by 9:00pm. We were hoping that tomorrow would bring better weather for our visit of Galway.

2015.07.19 – Galway (Ireland)

In the morning, we felt encouraged by the weather as it was not raining. We had a good buffet breakfast at our hotel. We opted to walk to the town center using the scenic route along the bay. We arrived at the Spanish Arch by 11am. We strolled along the small pedestrians streets. We saw a few street performers but we kept expecting some type of extravaganza from the Galway International Arts Festival. As it was Sunday, the Festival’s program seemed to be on the light side. We visited a sculpture exhibit which left us guessing what was that all about. Further along our walk we confirmed the location of tomorrow’s bus stop near the Galway Cathedral. We bought a garlic grater from an outdoor kiosk. Later, we stopped at a cafe for some cappuccinos and hot chocolate. We kept asking ourselves what was all the fuzz about Galway being so beautiful. We circled once again the town and managed to visit the City Hall museum. We stopped for an early supper at The Dough Brothers Pizzeria. The place was quite popular as it offered good pizza at a very reasonable price. We walked back to our hotel to shower and have a good rest.

2015.07.20 – Galway (Ireland) – Belfast (North Ireland)

We woke-up and had breakfast early this morning in order to catch our 9am bus to Sligo from the Galway Cathedral. We left our hotel by taxi at 8:30am. We boarded our first bus of three in order to reach Belfast. The Feda bus was quite modern with free WiFi and very good seating. In the town of Sligo, we had to walk 10 minutes from where our bus drop off to the Eireanna Bus Station for our next segment. We purchased our bus tickets for both the second and last segment to Belfast. Our final bus transfer was at Ennniskenhe where we noticed we had already crossed into North Ireland as the prices were now in Sterling pounds. From the Europa Bus Station in Belfast, we had a 10 minutes walk to our hotel/B&B Botanic Rest. The place was a renovated set of four connected houses. The room was a reasonable size but the washroom space was rather limited. In the evening we ventured out to a restaurant recommended by TripAdvisor – The Barking Dog. The restaurant was busy even on a Monday – a bit fancy and pricey. Jenny’s appetite was not satisfied with her small prawn linguine plate. On our way back, we saw the Belfast’s Queens University campus. Back at the hotel, we relaxed and did more travel planning for our next travel segment to Glasgow.

2015.07.21 – Belfast (North Ireland)

We had breakfast at our guesthouse. We headed out, a few block away, to catch a free 11am tour of the City Hall. Along the way, we stopped at a Barclay bank ATM to withdraw some funds while Jenny and Victoria did some unscheduled shopping at Primark. They both came out with jackets. Jenny purchased a blue trench coat while Victoria opted for a black leather looking coat. The City Hall tour provided a few photo opportunities. After our tour outside the City Hall, we approached a black taxi driver for a Mural tour. The tour provided us with a very good insight into the delicate peace that existed in Belfast. Later, we took a taxi to visit the newly opened Titanic museum. In retrospect, we preferred our Black taxi ride to the Titanic museum. We took the train back to the Botanic neighborhood. We had supper at a local Thai restaurant. We liked the vibe in Belfast as it felt like a young university student town. Back at the hotel, we revised our travel itinerary to include a visit to the Isle of Skye as it was highly recommended by work colleague. Our latest itinerary change hindered plans for a meet up with Jessica in York over a weekend.