Day 53 – July 11, 2025 – Edinburgh, Scotland to Dublin, Ireland
No big rush this morning as our flight was not until noon but did enjoy a good breakfast at the hotel. It’s about a 15-minute walk from the hotel to the airport so we headed out about 9:45 and quickly got through check-in and then security.
We are flying Aer Lingus, which we’ve never flown before, and John was unable to check us in early so we had no idea where our seats would be. As luck would have it, we were at the very back of the plane, lol! Even though the flight was just over an hour, the only service they offered you had to pay! Glad we had water.
We grabbed a taxi after getting our bags and had to laugh as Vance rode up front and got in on the left side of the car and the driver asked him if he was planning on driving, lol! It’s still strange to sit in the left seat up front as the passenger. The driver got a big kick out of it. We headed to the Dublin Citi Hotel (more like a hostel) and we were not impressed. We had a front room facing the main street (Dame Street), it was hot, and the window only opened a couple of inches, it was small and cramped and there was no A/C. I know we are spoiled, but it was stifling hot in the room. There are bars all up and down the street so I’m not expecting good things when it comes to sleeping.
Since John and I had not had anything to eat since breakfast, we grabbed a quick snack at the hotel restaurant – John had seafood chowder and I had crab cake balls mixed with rice. The food was decent so that was good.
We walked around exploring for a little bit then went into a place called The Port House and had a glass of wine and two tapas. John had made reservations at The Old Mill at 6:30 for dinner so we met up and headed there. There are very few places that have A/C so while John is okay with it, the rest of us weren’t. Luckily this place was not too bad. John and I split a prawn salad and a burger, which was very good!
Michelle and Vance had found a place called The Pink Restaurant where they had a drink earlier, so we headed there after dinner and had an after-dinner drink and made reservations for dinner tomorrow.
We walked along the river and then came back to the room, where it was very loud and noisy (it is a Friday night in Dublin), so not expecting to sleep well. We turned the volume of the sound machine up hoping to drown out some of the noise. I took a cold shower to cool off and John managed to unscrew the thing that holds the window from opening all the way, so we at least had some air flow. We do have a fan, but it doesn’t help all that much. Even though the window can open up, you still have to pull the curtains over it to drown out the lights and the noise.
Oh well, it is all part of the adventure, right?! Tomorrow is the Guinness tour so looking forward to that. Welcome to Dublin!
