We woke up yesterday in our great downtown hotel - One Sussex Place - in central Belfast. We walked to get tasty and filling breakfast bagels and then Kevin drove us to the Titanic Experience - a truly remarkable and unique multi-level sensory museum that took us through the history of Belfast, the construction of the Titanic, its test and maiden voyage, and the sinking. None of us had ever been to a museum this immersive or interactive and it seemed like three hours passed before we blinked an eye!
The highlights were an unexpected Disney-style ride summarizing the construction of the massive vessel, a three-sided virtual reality video screen giving us a complete tour of the ship, and screens in front of and below us showing what it would have been like to discover and explore the artifacts at the bottom of the sea.
Afterwards, we briefly visited the S.S. Nomadic, the last remaining vessel of the White Star Line, and Erika and I cued the music.
From Belfast, Kevin drove us an hour south, back into Ireland, to the old and beautiful Monasterboice - an old monastery whose round tower and Celtic crosses are nearly a millennium old.
Kevin then navigated us back to Dublin where we checked into our modern and excellent accommodations at the Marlin Hotel right in the heart of the Temple Bar District.
After catching our breaths, we walked across the river to the very interesting and generous-pouring Jameson Irish Whiskey Bow St Experience. With the help of very impressive projections and sensory objects as aids, our guide, Eoin, took us through the distilling process and Jameson’s history in Dublin.
We were fully encouraged to dig our noses in.
After a few extra whiskey-based cocktails, we trudged (a bit more slowly) back across the river to the Merchant’s Arch Pub, which is famous for its chowder and, apparently, its music and Irish stew-casserole. (Maybe I’m making the last part up but Jenna and I each thought it was EXCELLENT). Also excellent was our musical entertainment for the evening - a wonderful guitarist/singer who began performing right after we arrived and kept us there for hours and hours. We all ended up making requests and engaging with him over the course of the night. He happily relented and played, among other tunes, Danny Boy, Falling Slowly, and Rocky Road to Dublin (which brought the house down!)
This morning, Jenna and Kevin went off in search of souvenirs for their friends and family (y’all are in for some treats!). Erika and Simon went for a walk around central Dublin, Grafton Street, and through St. Stephens Green, where we tailed an adorable puppy (who had a penchant for jumping like a reindeer over small barriers) until basic social norms mandated that we let the pup, and its humans, walk off in peace.
We then stopped for a quick salad, got Simon a rugby jersey (of course ;)), and headed back to the hotel where we met Jenna and Kevin again, and then started the drive to the airport. There, we bade a tearful goodbye to dear Seamus, our trusty Toyota CH-R, and then enjoyed more than a few whiskey samples - only in the Dublin airport would you kill time sampling whisky - while walking slowly through the duty free sections where we purchased some of our favorite whiskeys that we would not be able to find back in the U.S.
This is a beautiful, hearty, and generous country that we were especially lucky to experience with dear friends. We won’t soon forget the memories we’ve made here together, which is honestly surprising given how much whiskey we happily consumed. We look forward to traveling together again soon and hopefully making it back to Ireland in the future too!
We’ll update y’all again once we land in Chicago. Check back soon!
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