Day 4: Dublin Castle & The Guinness Storehouse

My day started out pretty mellow. I woke up late and I took a leisurely walk around Dublin and shopped a bit for souvenirs for my family. Then I realized that I was really hungry, so I returned to the hostel to pester John (my hostel buddy) into getting lunch with me. While walking to the fish & chips place, he showed me where the Dublin Castle was. I had seriously been searching for it since day 1 and could NOT find it! Turns out, it was quite tucked away, which explains my difficulty. We explored the castle a bit and then headed to lunch.

 

We grabbed lunch at a place called Leo Burdock's, which is apparently the oldest chipper in Dublin. The portions were enormous and it was quite delicious. We took our food and ate in front of Christ Church.



 

Then, it was time to go the the Guinness Storehouse.

It was quite a walk across town, but I eventually got there.

 

Along the way, I even passed Arthur Guinness' old house.



I then wound my way through the backstreets to the Storehouse.

It was a really cool tour which was all self-guided in a surprisingly modern building. It started with all of the ingredients that are needed to make Guinness, then moved on to the process, then the history of the Guinness family, and finally the various ways that Guinness has been advertised.


The original contract the Arthur Guinness
signed for 9,000 years of business

At the end of the tour we all got to enjoy a complementary pint of Guinness, which we enjoyed in the Gravity Bar. It was a great bar at the very top of the Storehouse with a 360 degree view of Dublin.

 

After the tour and the drink, I headed back to the hostel to take a nap because beer always makes me incredibly sleepy. That night, I went out with my favorite Dutch guys to celebrate my last night in Dublin. We went to a bar in Temple Bar called "The Auld Dubliner" where we listened to some good music and talked about when they were going to come visit me in Paris and when I was going to go visit them in Holland. It was a great way to spend my last night in Dublin.

The last two blurry photos that I could get of them!