Travel Day 4 – Getting our Drink On
Well kind of. Day 4 consisted of both the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse tours, but before we delve into that let’s go back to the morning. Woke up super early again (damn jet lag) so kinda threw me off a bit, but was a nice early morning so decided to just read some Medium posts to get my mind going while I waited for breakfast. Loaded up my plate when it finally came out so I could really get my belly full before we commenced. Besides I knew I would be drinking so it is best to eat lots.
After Dean came down and ate we took off to the National Leprechaun Museum that opened at 10:00, but we got there early so we popped over to the bar across the street to kill some time. Ended up ordering the soup of the day each, and I had an Irish coffee (so 3 coffees in now and very awake) that hit the spot. Plus we got talking to the bartender who lived just outside Dublin and talked to her about her experience living in Ireland.
The National Leprechaun Museum isn’t so much a museum but more of a 45 minutes story telling adventure. They take you through their little – and yes I mean little as you get “shrunk down to the size of a leprechaun” – multi-room your telling all sorts of Irish folklore and stories. It’s a great experience and really quite fun. It inspired me to check out some more Celtic stories once I get home, so adding that on the to-do list when I’m back.
After the museum we headed over to the Jameson Distillery for our tour there. The history of Bow street and all the factories in the area is really quite something and John Jameson was a true pioneer of the times when he started his company. I recommend buying tickets online through Skip the Line as we literally just walked up, showed the voucher, and continued to the tour. All of 3 minutes and we were on our way to the tour.
Afterwords we grabbed some lunch just around the corner. As I was up early I really wasn’t feeling well, but I think it was more of I hadn’t eaten than anything else. Lunch really hit the spot so we made our way over to Guinness Storehouse. While Jameson was a 45 minute guided tour, Guinness was a self guided tour around its 5 levels. You really learn all about how Guinness is made, and if you head up to the 4th floor you can become a certified Guinness pourer and have the beer you poured right there and then. Like I said the other day, Guinness tastes so smooth here but the one I poured myself was the smoothest one yet.
Following Guinness we just decided to head back to the hostel as St. Patrick’s was now closed and planned to go tomorrow. Dinner was quick just down the street from the hostel and then we just went back to sleep. A fine end to a great day. Until tomorrow!
~Spencer
