Another Castle and a Few More Pubs

Today we had Dublin Castle on our agenda. It is kind of amazing that a castle lies in city center and you don’t really even see it. It’s not a towering one like Blarney, but it impresses nonetheless. We did a fairly quick tour of it as we did not pay to enter the “fancy” part. We did, however, get to go in the Royal Chapel, as well as the garden. It was a warm, sunny day, so many people were out enjoying the midday sun along with us. We lunched at The Stag’s Head, an historic pub I had read about in my guidebook. It was really cool inside (check out the stained glass windows), and our waitress was very friendly (she attempted to serve Jackson his dad’s Guinness). 🙂

This evening we had a literary pub crawl tour with our students. Basically, you walk from pub to pub, as well as places like Trinity College and St. Andrew’s Church, to hear tales of famous authors (e.g., Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Oscar Wilde) who frequented the area. The two guides are actors and go in and out of character. It was entertaining and informative, but we gave the kids a pass and I’m sure glad we did as they would have found it incredibly boring (especially with the 20-minute stops for people to get their pints). I ducked out with my folks a bit early to get everyone settled into bed as we have a 4:30am bus to catch to the airport for our flight to Edinburgh. (Also the reason why this post is short!). More from Scotland…