I think we’ll just accept that staying on top of this blog is not one of my strong suits, so from here on out I’m going to stop beginning each one by apologizing for my tardiness because it’s just getting repetitive at this point.😆
After Mychael and I got married (back in Sept. 2018), we started making plans for our honeymoon. Neither of us have done a lot of international travel, so we figured this was the time. We really wanted to go somewhere tropical since we both love the beach, but because we were planning to get pregnant shortly after the honeymoon, most of the tropical locations were off the table due to Zika. We evaluated our options and decided Greece would be perfect. I’d always wanted to go and there were plenty of beaches for us to enjoy (more on that one in the next post). We wanted to make this a multi-stop trip though, but weren’t sure what else to add to our itinerary. Mychael is Irish and went there once when he was younger, always dreaming of going back, so we added that to our list. Ireland and Greece…that’s a totally logical combination, right? Completely different climates and just a quick 4-hour flight. It didn’t make the most sense, but we decided to lock it in.
We started our trip in Ireland and because Mychael is the man he is, it was an adventure from the get-go. We arrived in Dublin and went to pick up our rental car. We wanted the freedom to sightsee at our own pace, so had decided to drive around the country. In an effort to save budget for whiskey tastings, Mychael booked a car with a manual transmission (and the sweet lady at the counter upgraded us to the bigger car…a mini).
In Ireland, they drive on the left side of the road, which meant he would be shifting with his left hand from the right side of the car…all things he’d never done before (note that I didn’t even attempt to drive at all!). We drove right into the heart of Dublin – traffic, one-way streets…the perfect way to start off a new driving adventure. Mychael mastered it in no time though and got us to our Airbnb in one piece. We had time for a quick nap and then it was off to see the city.
It was raining on the day we arrived, so our options were somewhat limited. We decided to kick things off with a true cheesy tourist experience and ride the double-decker bus to take in as much of the city as possible with our limited time (we only had one day before we planned to hit the road to Northern Ireland). With the weather being what it was, this was actually the perfect way to see a lot of the city.
The one thing I had planned in advance for us though was a tour of the Guinness Storehouse. It’s a must-see in Dublin.
Generally we’re not huge beer drinkers, but there’s one thing this Irishman taught me about St. Patrick’s Day is that we have to do at least a couple Irish car bombs, so I’d enjoyed a Guinness or two in the past. The first part of the tour was very informational, showing us the history of the beer and how it’s made (of course Mychael was geeking out the whole time because he loves to learn). Then we got to the good part…the tasting!
We learned to pour the perfect Guinness at the Guinness Academy – it’s tougher than you think – and got our official certification. So if anyone needs us to pour for them, we’ve got you covered.
We also got to do a super-cool experience that I signed us up for in advance – a Stoutie – they scanned our faces into the head of the beer! We were taken back into a super-secret room where a machine scanned our photos onto the beer. They turned out SO good!
From there we took our beers up to the Gravity Bar on the top floor to enjoy them with an incredible view of Dublin. It was a great experience that I would highly recommend for anyone making the trip.
And I know that’s all this blog is supposed to focus on, but I would be remiss not to briefly mention the other areas we visited.
From Dublin we drove up to Northern Ireland (totally different country with different currency) and stayed in Belfast. We met up with Mychael’s cousin that lives in a nearby town and he gave us a tour of the city. The history of civil unrest was so interesting. We went to the Titanic Museum,
signed a peace wall,
and did our own little pub crawl of famous bars.
The next day we did what we like to call marathon sightseeing. We went to the Dark Hedges (you Game of Thrones fans know what that is),
checked out some friary ruins, went on a tour of the Bushmills Distillery,
walked across the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge,
visited some castle ruins and walked out to Giants Causeway,
all before meeting Mychael’s cousin and his family at the highest restaurant in Ireland. It was really cool to be able to spend time and stay with locals to get a real sense for life in Ireland.
Then we drove out to the coast the next day and on the way walked the Walls of Derry and stopped at some random church ruins in the valley (everything has so much history in Ireland compared to our much more recent country). Once we got to the coast we took the mini off-roading to see a shipwreck on the beach in Donegal
and hiked to Slieve League.
That night we stayed at a castle hotel (one of the things I really wanted to do on this trip) where they upgraded us to one of the original rooms and treated us like royalty in honor of our honeymoon.
nikiok
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