Dublin, Ireland

After a wild and crazy first night in Cork, we accidentally slept in pretty late on our second day before catching the train back to Dublin. Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, we opted to take advantage of the absolutely perfect weather and make the short trip to a nearby coastal city called Howth. With only a few days in Ireland, we didn't think squeezing in a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher was possible, so we found the next best thing in a small coastal city only 30 minutes from Dublin. We arrived in Howth with at least 3 hours of remaining daylight and spent the first hour and a half hiking the the cliffs along the Atlantic coastline to find the lighthouse at the northernmost part of the island. The entire hike was incredibly beautiful, with ocean views as you would imagine the most beautiful parts of Ireland would have.

 We then cut through the more residential area, covered in multimillion dollar vacation homes, each of which has a unique nickname posted on its doorway or fenced entrance. To take a short break, we had a beer at a local pub with an ocean view. From there we finished the walk back to the train station and made it back to Dublin by 10pm. After freshening up, we went to Stag's Head, a pub in the Temple Bar area, where we met the most interesting and wonderful Irishman named Peter. After hours of talking over beers and sharing many life stories, I can best describe him as a person  feel incredibly fortunate to have gotten the chance to meet. As the pub was closing, he told us about a secret speakeasy cocktail bar in an unmarked building nearby and we strolled the streets of Temple Bar with him to find it so we could come back for a drink. 

Day two in Dublin we walked most of the city center visiting Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Dublin Castle, Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and Long Hallway library, and Braezen Head, which is allegedly the oldest pub in Dublin. In an attempt to find a riverside rooftop bar, we ventured to North Wall Quay but the bar was closed for a private event and instead we found ourselves on The Boat Bar & Restaurant, sitting on the river and snacking on mussels and beer while watching the sun go down. 

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at super trendy restaurant called Crackbird for dinner which serves various fried chicken dishes with unique culinary twists. After freshening up for the evening, we walked to the unmarked bar Peter showed us the night before and rang the doorbell where we were greeted by a very welcoming woman who led us to the third floor of the building which had an open roof, several candlelit tables and the most unique bar atmosphere I've ever experienced - known as VCC, or Vintage Cocktail Club. The extensive drink menu is divided by time periods of the recipes' origins and I ordered one pre 1880 cocktail called a Straight Sling and another from the 1960's, The Dirty Wizard which was the best cocktail I have ever consumed. 

Although VCC was hard to leave, we wanted to cover more ground so we walked to another highly recommended bar called The Workman's Club. There we met several locals that we ended up really hitting it off with and preceded to close down the bar with them before finding ourselves on an adventure to find wine. We ended up convincing a waiter at a nearby late night Indian food restaurant to sell us 4 bottles of wine to-go before cabbing back to one of their houses for a post party that lasted until after sunrise. Needless to say, we did not make our noon check out time the next morning and had to pay a small fee to cover a late check out when we finally pulled ourselves together that afternoon. Being our last day in Dublin we spent it doing a miniature pub crawl and hopped around from bar to bar trying to hair the dog so we would feel well enough for our 10pm flight to Edinburgh.