Nikita’s Nomadic Notes

Im not gonna lie, I had pretty high expectations for Dublin, I was really looking forward to this part of my trip. And it still exceeded my expectations! The vibes and culture were immaculate despite the typical Irish weather.

I spent a lot of my time just walking the streets and enjoying the buskers and Christmas decorations. I did indulge in quite a few hot choccys, still not as good as my own but they were decent! I did visit the key attractions; Molly Malone statue, Trinity College, Dublin Castle etc, however after spending so long in Europe, these were a little underwhelming. The city felt so welcoming and polite, except for the time I thought I was going to get mugged for my sandwich. I was walking down the street (a busy shopping street) munching on my subway sandwich in hand when I had three different homeless people approach me and ask if they could have my sandwich or if I could buy them a sandwich. In that sense, the city was a bit rougher than I expected with many more homeless people and druggies around.

The Guinness storehouse was a different type of experience. An educational and immersive, self-guided tour that takes you through the process of brewing Guinness. You even get to do a Guinness tasting, and then get a free pint at their gravity bar with views over the city. It was a cool experience, even for a non-Guinness lover. Following this I went for lunch with a friend and we found an incredible burger place. Born for Burgers. I’d found it on Google maps, but when we turned up there was no one around, which left us questioning our choice. He gave us the student discount (even tho neither of us are students lol) and it was 12.5€ for a huge burger, fries and a soft drink. It was great. Highly recommend, honestly wish I could’ve gone back a second time.

Obviously I had to visit the iconic Temple Bar and while touristy and overpriced, I loved it. The Christmas decorations were next level, and the live music was such a vibe. From here we then did a pub crawl. It was interesting, usually each hostel runs its own pub crawl, but instead, in Dublin, a third party organisation ran it and then all the hostels fed into it. This was a good way to do it as it meant there were a lot more people and it was heaps of fun. Even on a Tuesday night, all the bars were full and the live music was great. After the bars we went to a silent disco, one where the room is silent but everyone has headphones on, and there’s different channels with different music. It was surprisingly fun. After this we hit a club. All in all it was plenty of fun.

With the sun out and shining, I walked along the river and explored the Grand Canals before heading to the Sandymount beach. The beach was far less than impressive, but the walk was nice. That night I had tickets to see Noah Kahan in concert. I had brought this ticket back in June – they’d sold out instantly so I knew I’d be able to resell it if I wasn’t able to make it. It was a fantastic concert!! Although for some reason it took place in what is usually a boxing stadium, so the venue really wasn’t well suited for musical performances. Noah Kahan is an artist that was small, and when I was listening to him no one knew who he was, but in recent months he’s blown up massively. He’s even coming to Australia next year, but still not NZ. One of the best nights of my whole trip!

And this left me with one final day in Dublin. The forecast was to rain all day, but I took the risk and grabbed the train out to Howth anyway. A cute little fishing village about 25min out of the city. Here there was a cliff walk, where you walk out along the coast. The rain held off and it was stunning! The landscape and scenery reminded me a little of home – a whole heap of gorse. I walked about 12kms, but there were a bunch of different paths and trails you could take. It was the perfect way to end my time in Dublin.

Leaving Dublin was an early start, I had a 7am flight, so I had to catch the 4am bus to the airport. For some reason the airport was insanely busy even at 5am in the morning, it was nuts. However, the early start did mean I got to catch an awesome sunrise in the sky!

Ireland was awesome! I would love to spend more time here seeing more of the countryside and landscapes. It feels like the perfect place for a road trip. I will be back one day!

~ Nikita’s Nomadic Notes