We walked out about 9:30 into the burning bright sunlight of a dublin summers day. I swear this city doesn't know how to cope with anything other than dismal grey rain. Its beatuiful in the sunshine though. We walked for a bit grabbing a coffee from a random bakery and headed to a church where they exhibit the mummies held in the crypt.
Bizarre I know. It gets bizzarer. So the crypt keeper turns up and hes an odd blend of Irish-showman and RADA reject. His emphasis is totally off and he speaks like every word he says is total revalation to his audience.
I suppose he has to make sure the tourists for whom English is a second third or fourth language don't miss every point. His description of being hung drawn and quartered will stay will me for a long time though.
Everywhere in the crypt there are clear signs saying "These are sacred remains. Please do not take photos" however at the 'climax' of the tour you are given the oppourtunity to touch the mummified remains of an eight hundred year old corpse.
This dicotamy surprised me.
You're not allowed to take a photo which is generally a non-invasive proceedure, but you are allowed to stroke the hand of an actual corpse beacause it's considered lucky?
Are we still in the eighteenth century? because it bloody feels like it sometimes.
ANYWAY... we moved on from the dry crpyts into the still burning sunshine and walked across to the Jamesons factory wherefor 13.50 you too can be harded like cattle around the various brewing distilling and maturing processes that go into making, what is at best, a reasonable whiskey. Note for all you pedants out there, Scottish whisky is spelt without the e, Irish Whiskey is spelt with the e and Welsh Whisky is best avoided.
By this time, having skipped breakfast, it was a quarter past lunch so we headed to one of the only Brew-pubs in Dublin, The Porterhouse. I've been to their sister pub in Covent Garden in London but this was my chance to see the original.
It would have been rude not to sample their homebrew beers with lunch so we all got a different pint and tried them all out with our ample lunch orders.
Fod and beer are expensive in Dublin but only because the pound has fallen heavily against the Euro recently. So you'd expect to pay about 5 quid a pint and 10-15 Euros for a meal. Which is by no means outrageous for a weekend break but if you were here for a singificant time I think it could become prohibitily expensive.
From there we walked through town to McDaid's which was both a morgue and a Chapel before becoming a pub. It was nice but nothing special considering its unusal heritage althought the loos were up three flights of narrow winding stairs and they did have the cricket on.
We walked on after the obligatory pint of the black stuff to St Stephens green which was swarming with people and not the haven from the busy madness of Dublin that the guidebooks had promised. We didn't stay for long.
We walked back to the hotel via the Stags head which we had scouted the previous night and found an extra room at the back which technically would count as the snug. Very comfy and good good beer. Back at the Hotel we had our customary siesta and then headed out into temple bar on a saturday night on a summers eve.
The place was rammed. We had heard that it would be busy but not on this scale. The pubs were literally oveflowing with loud rawcous people when we were mpore in the mood for pints and chat.
We headed away from temple bar and found ourselves in a pub called the long stone which had an enmous sheltered outdoor area (almost empty) and a massive oaken fireplace carved in the shape of a bearded viking type God. V.Good.
Then we headed to what is probably my new favourite pub in Dublin, Mulligans.
It has low ceilings, locals and what is the best pint of guiness I've ever had.
Through carefulll and dilligent tasting we four of us , no strangers to sampling the alchol have come to this conclusion. The guinness DOES taste different in Dublin, but not in all the pubs. Let me explain; In the UK I find guinness has a metallic aftertaste buried deep amgonst the base notes that it simply does not have in most of the pubs over here. McDaids, mentioned above, serves a very UK style pint whereas Mulligans serves something so smooth and creamy and rich its almost a differnt drink.
So I solidly recommend trying many diffent pubs in Ireland , You'll be spolit for choice, before discovering whether you don't really enjoy guinness in Dublin.
In mulligans behind the bar, just down from their Irish Whiskey shelf was a collection of round metal containers which were about an inch and a half across. It turns out this was snuff. Well, we HAD to buy some, i've never seen snuff for sale behind a bar in my life so we had to try some.
Cue much hilarity as the four of us spill some on the table trying to get the darn thing open and take a little pinch each and shove it up one nostill like Kerry Katona at a christening.
Its like inhale vics vapour rub and tickles the inside of our nostils all the way up. When Caroline let out and enourmous sneeze the barmans face was a picture.
From tehir we moved on Finding 'davey Byrnes' too poncy and 'Kehoes' rammed to the rafters we went into 'The Hairy Lemon' (No, I haven't get a clue) And had a reasonable pint before heading home. All in all a very statisfctory day.
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