Friday, May 26, 2017

Merry Dublin

Traveling through Europe over the past three years has been an amazing experience.  My family and I experienced new cultures, tasted new foods, and learned new languages. Our adventures will be forever treasured and our memories forever cherished.

Last Friday, I shared a tidbit from our many adventures in Prague.  Today, we travel to Merry Dublin.  Dublin was a busy and upbeat city.  There was music and beer around every corner.  We had a wonderful time exploring the old churches, museums, the Guinness Storehouse, and the Jameson Distillery.

One of the churches we visited was Christ Church.  Founded in 1030, this church was located in the center of Medieval Dublin.  It has recently been used in television shows like, "Rein" and "The Tudors".  We were able to walk down into the crypts of the church where they had original costumes from the "The Tudors".  The main church had a passageway/bridge that leads to the former site of St. Michael.  Today, the bridge takes you to an interactive museum called Dublinia.  Dublinia teaches the history of Dublin from the Vikings to the Medieval period.  The girls had a blast will all the hands-on activities.












We also visited the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.  Completed in 1191, St. Patrick Cathedral is the tallest church in Ireland.  As beautiful as this church was on the inside and out, we were a little disappointed that it had been turned into a money making museum.  As you walked around the church, there were numerous hand-on activities, artwork, and crypts.  Definitely not what we expected when we walked in.

The Guinness Storehouse was a fun, for the whole family, museum.  They allowed you to travel through their multi-level storehouse at your own pace.   Signs and videos throughout provided you with all the information you could ever want on how Guinness beer is made. The Storehouse was interactive and fun, even for the little ones who didn't get a chance to sample the famous Irish beer.  We learned how the beer was brewed and how the taste of the beer is changed depending on where the barley is
grown and even which water is used.   We experienced different sensory activities including feeling the barley, smelling the hops, and tasting the beer.   The kids were able to play around with different advertising characters and create their own advertisement. And when we reached the top to the multistory storehouse, we had a panoramic view of Dublin with a freshly pulled Guinness.

The Jameson's Distillery wasn't as child friendly.  It was interesting for my husband and I, but with
nothing interactive to do, it was a boring tour for the kids.  While Guinness is produced world wide, Jameson's is only made in Ireland, from a single distillery.  This is why Guinness can taste different depending on your location, but Jameson's tastes the same no matter where you drink it.

The girls were good sport throughout the trip, but their favorite spots were the wax museum and the leprechaun museum.   The wax museum began with famous Irish figures throughout history.  It continued with famous cartoons, movies, and athletes.  The leprechaun museum was an Irish story telling adventure.  We traveled through the magic Giant Causeway to become leprechaun size and heard tales that had been passed down through the ages.  Check out the pictures below.

Wax Museum

Wax Museum

Wax museum

Wax museum
Leprechaun Museum

Leprechaun museum

1 comment:

Grandmommy said...

What a fun trip! I'm glad you had such a good time!