Friday, June 28 Dana Arrives in Dublin

Dana got to the apartment at about 1:00 PM. We got her settled in and then walked downtown to do a three hour Dublin Free Walking Tour. It isn’t really a free tour as you tip your tour guide generously, but they like to call it a free tour to encourage you to loosen your purse strings at the end of the tour when the tour guide asks for a tip.

This is the courtyard of the old castle where in 1922 England ceded Ireland to the Irish. The tour was was very historical and very political and very interesting.

This is the Temple Bar Tavern decorated for the Gay Pride 🏳️‍🌈 Parade tomorrow.

This is St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The parish will be sponsoring a big Fourth of July celebration.

This is Molly Malone. It is reputed to be good luck to rub her breasts. Kinda of like rubbing Abe Lincoln’s nose only more intimate. I noticed a lot of people in Dublin gathering in line at this statute for a little bit of extra luck.

After the tour we had a drink at the Fuzzy Lemon, an authentic Irish pub, and then ambled on to dinner.

Sara made a reservation for us at Bastible, a tasting menu restaurant, where we had a fabulous meal.

We started with oysters and then we had beets with pumpkin purée.

Then we had fried chicken with chili sauce.

Then we had tomato broth with cockles and beans.

Then we had Knockalara cheese dumplings with cauliflower shavings.

The main course was cod with bits of brown shrimp.

For dessert we had Woodruff cream cake 🍰 with black currants and as a final course we had chocolate honeycomb with a layer of seaweed on top.

We enjoyed a nice bottle of white wine with dinner.

What a great dinner and what a great treat it was to share it with Sara and Dana.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Friday.

Goodnight from Dublin.