Dublin weekends

First time we went to Dublin was 3 weeks after arriving in Carlow, though loving it, we were craving some city life. Someone mentioned a Temple Bar Music Festival in Dublin, and that was the perfect excuse to make up our minds. I felt I was crazy for going to Dublin straight from school on a Friday after a really busy week, but once there the "tiredness" disappeared. 

I appreciated Dublin not being huge and, though a cold weekend, I actually really enjoyed walking around and  feeling all touristy having to figure out on our maps where to go. One of the highlights was the free, walking tour we got from this Irish/German student at Trinity College, also a writer and musician. He did a great job showing us around and tying it all to the history of Dublin and plenty of funny anecdotes (he even played the tin whistle for us). My favourite places were Trinity college and its incredibly beautiful library (every library should look like that -ladders included), the Cathedrals and St. Stephen's Green Park (Green is no coincidence). I could've spent my entire day taking pictures there.

Dublin Castle is... different. I loved the gardens and found the contrast between the castle and the "lego" houses beside it quite interesting. I wonder why this contrast of buildings, colours and completely different styles seems to be everywhere I've visited in Ireland so far.

 

Temple bar is the popular spot, filled with pubs, restaurants, cafés and bars. Though it had nothing to do with bars until quite recently. It gained its name from it's owner, Sir William Temple, and as it stands right by the river Liffey it became: Temple's bar. We had fun going in some of the pubs while the live music was going on and, on our second visit, we even enjoyed some live Irish dancing!

 

What I did love indeed was all the street music and markets. The fresh food was delicious (and cheap!) We've made a good, long stop on the Saturday food market both times we've been here. I kind of fell in love with these guys playing in Grafton Street... I mean with their music; they were class -as they say here :)