Dirty Dublin

I can't believe I've been home for six weeks and am still posting about travel, and only up to the halfway point! Here's a post about our next destination: Dublin.

After some beautiful weather in Scotland, we were a bit dismayed to be rained on, heavily, for almost the whole time we were in Ireland. We were also dismayed at how expensive everything is. But, there was lots of pretty stuff, our accommodation was great, and we happened upon some exciting veg food finds.

On our first full day in Dublin, it was cloudy but not yet raining. So we did lots of wandering around (continuing to get lost, despite having maps, and having street signs in english, and whatnot). We poked our heads into Dublin Castle and found they were giving free tours, because one part of the castle was closed to visitors. So we said 'yes please!' and had a tour through the central courtyard, which was central to the Easter Rising in 1916.

We looked at the remaining tower, and went into the underground bit where we saw lots of archaeological evidence that showed the occupation of this site since Viking times.

We went into the chapel, which isn't used any more, but is still really gorgeous.

We checked out the really old Church of Audoen, which had gravestones for the floor - a slightly creepy idea, but kind of cool in terms of the history of the place, too.

There were other churches that cost money to get into, so we skipped them. And there was the Jameson Whiskey Museum, and the Guinness Factory, both of which were also too expensive. So we skipped them, looked around Trinity College and Temple Bar, drank pints in pubs, and went to some free museums. These were especially useful when the downpour started.

Trinity College, founded in 1592.

As a result, there aren't quite so many photos from Dublin. But the museums were cool - one about military history, with lots of attention paid to the fight for independence from Britain; one about archaeology, with bog men and medieval religious artefacts and gold; and one about 'natural history', which is referred to by locals as the 'dead zoo' because it is just a vast collection of taxidermied animals.

Food-wise, we did eat plenty of hummus and bread, and chips, and other thrifty meals.  I forgot to take my camera out at Juice, where we had a two-course lunch for €8.95 each. I had nori maki for a starter, which was good but small. Andy started with pitta and crudites with olive tapenade, which was plentiful and delicious. We shared, of course. Then for our mains, I had the bean casserole of the day, which turned out to be green lentils, veggies, and a tomato-coconut curry sauce. With brown rice. Andy had corn fritters, which were not vegan and not big enough for him. Luckily this time my meal was big and heaping, so I shared.  Go to Juice if you are in Dublin, it is good.  

I did take photos at Cornucopia, which turned out to be a cafeteria-style place where you ordered one main and two salads, which were dished out onto your plate from a big pan. Andy found this deeply disappointing, and he talked for days about how much he didn't love it. I thought the food was good, and we got loads of it, so I was happy.

I ate some kind of tempeh stew on rice, with salads of garlic potatoes with roast hazelnuts in vegan mayonnaise, and broccoli couscous something or other.

 
Andy had an eggplant bake sort of thing, with a noodle salad and some other bean-y vegetable salad. One of the reasons I suspect he was unhappy with it is because he ordered wrong - I should have been generous and swapped plates, but those garlic potatoes were just so yummy.