Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts

Tuesday, 14 November 2017

Dublin // Mini holiday in Ireland 28.10.-1.11.


After Cork, we headed back to Dublin, enjoying it for couple of days. Halloween was spent in Temple Bar, listening to Irish music and drinking Guinness; days spent strolling, seeing couple of museums, Glasnevin Cemetery & botanic gardens.

Little Museum of Dublin was a quirky little gem. Although small indeed, it gave out feeling of Dublin's personality. It felt like there would be endless stories, but the tour was quite short; it was still fun to look around. Seeing the statue of Oscar Wilde was of course a must - who doesn't love Oscar Wilde? There were a lot of interesting and beautiful statues in the parks of Dublin otherwise too.

Next time I'll travel, I'll be heading back to Finland for my winter holiday... Can't wait for proper relaxing and Christmas moods!


Saturday, 11 November 2017

Cork // Mini holiday in Ireland 28.10.-1.11.

 
Autumn makes me tired, and I have been busy with my uni work; that's why I haven't posted the pictures of our mini holiday to Ireland earlier like I was supposed to. Prior to the holiday I was very stressed, as we had booked the tickets before I knew our essay deadlines had been made earlier, meaning I had to finish all the essays with less time to work on them; also, our original Airbnb host in Cork cancelled our stay couple of days before travelling, but luckily enough a lovely host had just posted her room for the first time.

After waiting for a while at Dublin airport, we got a bus to south; the drive was quite long, and our bus broke on the way (and quite confusingly, the driver didn't tell anyone first when we parked next to the substitute bus), but at least it was nice to look at the green scenery. For some reason I was photographing less than I normally do, and to be honest, Cork ended up being bit of a disappointment; it was mostly about the timing, though. We were looking for a relaxing weekend in a nice town, and did not realise that there was a jazz festival going on, and of course Halloween made the streets busier than regular as well. Drunken people shouting on the streets quite early in the evening is not exactly relaxing.


What comes to sights, we went to the Cork City Gaol; a beautiful old jail, but it left you little cold. The exhibitions themselves were not too wide, and what was even weirder, a changing exhibition was set up so some of the other displays were hidden (we realised this as some informative boards were floppy and we could have a peek behind them). Audiovisual presentation did not work, and a piece of paper was taped where a piece was removed. Moreover, there were Halloween decorations around, which to be honest were quite embarrassing; for example, a bloody doll in a cell of a woman who had beaten her children.

Before leaving Cork, we went to Blarney Castle. Of course we had to climb the tower, but that turned out to be a silly decision as it turned out to be way scarier for my scared-of-heights-ass than I anticipated; I survived up and down, but I was shaking and felt like throwing up afterwards, even with (obviously) skipping the kissing of the Blarney stone. The estate was lovely to stroll around but whoops - Blarney House was closed for the time being, so there was less to see there too than we would've hoped.