Seven days wasn't anywhere near enough to fully discover the country, but we did what we could with our time there. I really enjoyed the scenery and tea shops, and Greg liked the whiskey and the castles. We stayed at a hotel in Powerscourt, a park about a half hour's drive from Dublin. It had a lot of nice bike trails and hiking trails, and had the biggest waterfall in the country.
We spent a lot of time in Dublin exploring the city. We did a tour of the Jameson Factory and the Guiness Factory, both of which were in the city. The Jameson Factory was much smaller and we learned a lot about whiskey and how it's made. They showed us how the grains were cooked and what their triple distilling process involved. An interesting thing about their whiskey is that a large part of the flavor comes from the barrels they store it in. They use "seasoned" barrels, meaning they have been used to store another type of alcohol previously, so that their whiskey takes on a small amount of the character from that alcohol. Some of their barrels come from a burbon factory in Kentucky, which makes it sweet. At the end we all got some Jameson whiskey, and I learned that it is totally delicious with ginger ale and lime. Here is Greg participating in a whiskey tasting at the factory.
The Guiness Factory was huge, and more like an interactive museum. They showed the whole process of how Guiness is made, from harvesting the grains to adding the hops to the final product. Apparently hops are a type of plant, and they are used to preserve the beer.
This was water from the water source they use to make the beer.
They had a giant sculpture designed to look like a glass of Guiness, used in this advertisement.
At the end of the tour we went to the top to get a free pint of Guiness. We weren't too crazy about the beer, but there was a very nice view from the top over Dublin. The Guiness Factory is the tallest building in Dublin, and on the top floor at the bar you had a panoramic view of the city.
One thing I loved about Dublin was all of the tea shops. They were like coffee shops, but when you walk in there are many jars of loose leaf teas out, so you can smell them before ordering a cup. They had delicious teas like Oolong, Pu'ehr, and a new one that I discovered called Rooibos which comes from South Africa.
We did a bit of exploring on the West side of the country with a tour of the Blarney Castle and Cork. It was a rail tour so we took the train out there, and it was an all day trip. This was the Blarney Castle.
People were much smaller back when this castle was built. There were some stairways we could only just fit into to climb. And the ceilings and entrances were very small.
The entire structure was made of stone.
The bottom 6 inches of this rock is the Blarney Stone. Legend has it that if you kiss it, you will receive the gift of eloquence. You have to lie on your back and hold onto the bars to kiss it backwards, which is the easiest way since there is a drop right before it. I was told by someone who used to live in Ireland that the locals pee on this stone so Greg and I passed on kissing it.
This was the highest budget church to build in Ireland. It is huge, and has beautiful stained glass windows on the inside.
Greg's phone took this picture - my camera didn't come close in quality.
We also saw the Book of Kells and the library at Trinity College.
I was very impressed with the artwork in the ancient texts from the scribes. I wasn't able to get any pictures of them, but every page had detailed, intricate calligraphy and illustrations. I found some pictures of it online, just to give you an idea. Keep in mind how small these books were, they must have used a tool to get in all of that detail.
