Hi there! While we still think wrapping up the last few days of Dublin into one post makes sense (there really wasn’t that much that actually happened, as you read last time) we still realized as we put the thing together that if we took our usual time with describing meals and lodging that it would make for an extraordinarily long post. And so, since this is a free and gratis blog that can’t get itself in trouble with its advertisers (ha!) we’re going to slow our roll a little here at the end and give a separate look at where we stayed and what we ate in our last few days before returning home. In case you’re wondering just what exactly you’re in for today, here’s a quick summary: two yummy meals and one sub-mediocre hotel stay. So if that whets your appetite, read on!

On the day we arrived in Dublin we scooted right over to our hotel, the Wilder Townhouse. Presumably it was once the townhouse of somebody named Wilder (cool it there, Sherlock! yeah yeah…) but it is now a “Small Luxury Hotel of the World” which is a weird co-op of shmancy lodgings scattered all over the place. We only know about it because SLH may be independent but it has a relationship with Hyatt. Presumably, Hyatt is able to leaven the offerings on their website with these boutique-ish places and the SLH joints get added exposure. All that matters to us is that we get our Hyatt benefits at SLHes (in theory; hang on a sec) and during the pandemic Hyatt was making promotion in their points world obscenely easy. As a result, we are spending at least this year in the peak category, “Globalist”, so Hyatts give us all kind of bennies like automatic room upgrades, late check-out/early check-in etc… Well, the Wilder seems not to have received the memo, because the only way to describe the room we were in is “shoebox.” It was absurdly small, not just for a “luxury hotel” but even for a “Victorian squatter’s hovel”. I assume that’s a category. We have had bathrooms bigger than this room. Which, you know, we’re not totally precious about these things, but this being a special trip and all we had actually splashed out a bit on the lodging, and this is not how you want a special treat to play out. Compounding matters, the staff could not have given less of a crap about the situation, or the breach of policy. We could pay for an upgrade, but as I’ve already intimated the place already wasn’t cheap, so no thanks.

As soon as we dropped our bags off in the Wilder (thus completely filling the room :p) we whipped up a few quick restaurant reviews and made for a neighborhood joint called 31 Lennox. It was midday on the weekend, which meant brunch! One of the strange frissions on this trip has been breakfast – either we’re in a hotel with an at-best mediocre buffet, or else we manage to swing something truly scrumptious in an actual restaurant. This was the latter, and it was really great. Lisa had a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich thing (we first had to ask if we could infer the word “fried” in the “buttermilk chicken” offering, which it turns out we could) and I had a perfect eggs benedict. I actually don’t care for the use of runny eggs in.. well, anything really. The one exception is benedict style. Go fig. It was a great way to reset our day after the bus travel and the less-than-stellar accommodation situation. We could also hear from all around us that this was by-and-large a local joint and not typically tourist fare. It’s a bit two-faced(?) of us to be so anti-tourist when we are being tourists ourselves, but that doesn’t change the fact that we take it universally as a good sign when everyone else in a restaurant seems to be a local. Gods only know what us being there signals to the locals.

We snacked our way through the evening, rummaging together a meat and cheese selection from a local Spar (that’s a 7-11 to my American friends); don’t judge us, you weren’t there. (heh) We compensated for such a meager supper by turning things up a couple of notches the next day at Suesey Street, whose tagline is “A Taste of Home in Every Bite.” This may very well be true, but they cheat by being super vague about where “home” is. I presumed France based on some of the things on the menu and the accent of the kid who was serving us, but Lisa swears he was just Irish of a region we hadn’t encountered. In any case, the food was excellent, the wine list was not extensive but was thoughtfully put together, and the décor & ambiance were nice enough that we had a rare moment of feeling like we maybe weren’t dressed well enough. Still, it was a quiet afternoon and as with any truly good service we were never made to feel uncomfortable with the situation. It was an excellent way to pass a meal.

And that’s what (else) we have to say about the end of the trip. Thanks for following along and we’ll see you next time!

We’re going to wrap up the last few days of out trip a little bit differently. It’s not that we don’t *want* to tell you more about Ireland, it’s just that it (the trip, not Ireland) really isn’t interesting; part of this was by design and part of it was just dumb luck. Fortunately, we can still give you some (hopefully) interesting stories of travel in Ireland. You’ll see, hang on a sec. On the other hand, this covers enough time that even a seriously pruned blow by blow would make for a small novel. True, love means never having to monitor word count on a blog, but still. So we’re going to talk about what went down in the last few days, and then next time we’re going to talk about where we ate, which was notable on multiple occasions.

As I said at the end of the last post, we had a plan to see some last sites before dropping the car off in Belfast. Well, the weather gods had been unreasonably kind to us for this whole trip, and they just couldn’t help themselves any more. It was sheeting rain; windshield wipers were barely keeping up. We gave it until a key highway exit to get better and when it didn’t we just pressed on for Belfast. Naturally, the rain let up, but seriously who knows what direction the clouds were moving? (Anybody with a compass I guess, but … shush you.)

We arrived in Belfast and dropped our car at the airport. I’m not 100% certain that we needed the comprehensive coverage this time, but like all insurance, you don’t need it until you do, and then you really need it. Chalk it up to my excellence at driving on the left. (Ho! It is to laugh.) We scooted back to the same hotel we stayed in last time, not because we loved it so much as that it was a known quantity and after the last few quaintly idiosyncratic (ahem) places we stayed we liked the sound of known. We did have a lovely dinner at a place just down the street, Gnostic, and it truly is worth a visit if you’re ever in Belfast. Other than that, though, it was a laundry day and a reset for Dublin.

The next day was comprised of a bus ride to Dublin, a check-in to a shoebox of a hotel room (we have had the strangest run of hotel rooms this trip, I swear…) and brunch at a tasty spot in the neighborhood, 31 Lennox. (Hold that thought.) Other than picking up an ersatz cheese board in the local SPAR that was it. See what I mean about quiet, almost not worth mentioning? And yet, here you are.

The day following, which was a Tuesday was filled with…. shopping. Here’s the thing: neither of us likes to shop. We did not have a fun, free-spirited romp through the luxe markets of swanky Dublin. No, we needed shoes and the Portuguese seem to have uniformly narrow feet. The Irish are not similarly afflicted, so we knew we could get better-fitting shoe there, and thus we did. A couple of other mundane sundries were crossed off the list, and though it took some time it was once again desultory.

Wednesday, our last day in Dublin, finally had a bit of action to it. We packed up, checked out of our hotel and had them hold our bags so we could stroll across St. Stephen’s Green to the Irish National Gallery. In my limited but growing experience, art galleries come in two flavors (they all have “nice art for people to look at” as part of their purpose, that’s a given): either the gallery exists primarily to demonstrate that its home belongs in the constellation of great place, by exhibiting a selection of work from the greatest artists in the world, or it exists primarily to raise the visibility of home-grown artists for their glory and the reflected glory upon those artists’ home. The Irish National Gallery is definitely the latter; it has multiple floors of art by Irish artists, often portraying Irish artists (authors in the main), and then a capstone gallery of art by “European masters” in which the pieces were created in, or which portray places or people in, Ireland. None of this is to take the piss out of the gallery; it’s well organized and a treat to ramble through. Plus they have a Vermeer so it would never be a complete waste. After the gallery we gathered up our things and took a bus to the airport, thence on to our flight to Lisbon, and a check-in to a literally-one-week-since-opening Hyatt. Seriously. We’re pretty sure we’re the first people in this room, they are clearly still working out some bugs with the elevators and such, and they upgraded us to a pretty amazing suite simply out of gratitude, it seems, that somebody is staying with them. It’s a lovely place and surely won’t be empty for long, but it is kind of weird to be practically alone in a gigantic hotel.

Since we didn’t do a lot of interesting things in Ireland those last few days, we figured we’d point you towards some stories where more happened. Our honeymoon, as it happens, was a little more than 10 years ago and covered parts of Ireland and Scotland. I’ve linked some of these posts below, please do have a look.

Day 1 of our Honeymoon which kicked off in Dublin.

Day 2, when we went to Newgrange and the Hill of Tara.

Day 3, including Trinity College and the Book of Kells.

Day 4, including Hadrian’s Wall and Vindolanda.

You can use the “Show More Posts” function at the top of each post if you want to see more in the series. It’s a pretty good trip… at least, if you’re enjoying The Ramble, it’s more of the same just slightly older.