This is a post dedicated to the primary reason why I enjoy Dublin so much – the parks and the rich literary history coming from here. It really helps to come to Dublin if you enjoy literature, because apart from drinking, literature is the next biggest thing here. Dublin is full of bookstores – both used and new – and has an enormous literary history which continues to develop with modern Irish authors to this day. Dublin is proud of…
Some people say you can skip the Guinness Storehouse because it’s touristy and you don’t actually get to see the beer being made. When I was in Dublin in 2012 I did skip it, but I always kind of regretted it. This time, I made a point to be sure we came here. How can you go to Dublin and not pay homage to the most Irish of all beers? I purchased tickets in advance, which I highly recommend, just…
So I love doing a high tea when I go on vacation – especially if there is a fancy one in a fancy hotel that is KNOWN for tea. (I also love a high tea here in Chicago as there are a ton of amazing places for it!) Tea is also a great thing to do on the first day when you arrive in Europe or somewhere else where you may be feeling pretty tired or jet laggy. The 2…
Dublin Castle is a nice way to spend about an hour of your time while in Dublin. It’s not as grand as The Palacio Real in Madrid (which you can read all about here!) and doesn’t even come close to the grandeur of Versailles, but it is a neat place nonetheless. We came here early on a Saturday morning, and while I did get tickets in advance, it was not necessary since there were barely any people here. You are…
The National Gallery was at the top of our list of places to visit on our short trip to Dublin. Can you guess why? Yes! They have a Caravaggio! The Gallery is centrally located, right on Merrion Square just to the east of Trinity College. We trudged here in the absolutely pouring rain. Unfortunately, they did not have an operating cloak room or lockers, so we had to carry our wet jackets and umbrellas around. The National Gallery is free,…
So you can spend a ton of time here, or just a little bit of time – it is completely up to you. The first time I came to Dublin in 2012 I did a full tour of Trinity College walking around the campus and learning about different cool spots and its history. It takes about 1.5-2 hours depending on how long you linger at the Book of Kells and the Old Library. This time, though, we got tickets just…
How can I have a travel blog and not talk about my incredible Honeymoon in 2016? Well, it has been a while, but my memories from the Seychelles are probably some of my most vivid still. I had dreamed of going to the Seychelles for my Honeymoon ever since I was in High School. Sometime in the mid-1990’s the Chicago Tribune’s Travel section had a massive article about the Seychelles with a big banner photograph of the Anse Source D’Argent…
We took a relatively quick detour to see Mdina Malta on the last day of our trip. We were already a bit exhausted and suffering a bit of tourist burn-out, but Brian and I definitely wanted to see a few Game of Thrones filming sites and Mdina is a really cool and unusual fortified city that you really shouldn’t miss seeing while in Malta. We drove here after our Blue Grotto excursion which you can read about here. It took…
Visiting the Blue Grotto on the southern tip of Malta was the one experience I was looking forward to the most on this trip. Promises of crystal clear, bright blue-green waters, incredible cliffs and rock formations and views made me yearn with anticipation for this jaunt. It was everything I hoped it would be! Getting here was super easy from Valletta. It was about a 25 minute drive straight south and there were good signs. There is a free parking…
As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, I was not really super into neolithic history and temples and things before coming to Malta. Seeing the temples and caverns for myself, though, really changed my mind. We came to the Ggantija Temples during our day trip to Gozo. Check out the full itinerary for our day on Gozo Island here! These are the oldest and largest of the neolithic temples in Malta, and they really were super cool, and you could…