Hi, how are ya? Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Last year we visited a few places in Ireland and it was absolutely dreamy! We started off in Dublin, where we stayed a couple of days. It is such a lovely city and already I am dreaming to go back. The city is small but oh so lovely, with interesting museums and beautiful architecture. What would be a better time to show you some pictures of Dublin than on Saint Paddy’s?

Dublin is not a very big city, and it feels quite homey. The people are very friendly and there aren’t a lot of tourists yet. Our hostel (Dublin Central Hostel, which was okay but not really worth mentioning any further) was in the middle of the city and one of the first things we walked into was the Garden of Remembrance you see here. It’s a monument to remember those who fought for Ireland’s freedom. It’s a really beautiful and peaceful monument.

Next to the Abbey Presbyterian Church is the Dublin writers museum. I really love books and on vacations we’re always looking for the most amazing bookstores and libraries. A writers museum is straight up our alley!

Not only was the museum located in such a gorgeous building, it also contained a lot of information about Ireland most famous writers, such as William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett. It also had a cute little store from where I bought some poetry.

When we walked a bit around the city, we came across this bookstore called Chapters. It was huge and the prices of books were absolutely amazing. I don’t know if you know this, but in the Netherlands, all of the books have fixed prices. It’s guaranteed that if you find a copy of a book in one store, it has the same price in any other store in the Netherlands. Ireland and the UK do not have this, which is why I get absolutely bonkers whenever I’m there, and I’ll buy as many books as can fit in my luggage. I bought six books on this vacation (Boyfriend bought five). Needless to say, our suitcase were a lot heavier when we came back. Anyway, if you love books and you’re in Dublin, you have to visit Chapters, because they have everything a booklover could want.

After we bought some books, we just roamed the city a bit and took in the beautiful architecture, street art and the numerous souvenir shops that Dublin has to offer.

We had dinner at Kingfisher, which claimed to have Dublin’s best fish and chips. They were okay, I guess. I wouldn’t recommend it. I would recommend that if you wanted to have fish and chips, you should go to England…

After dinner, we went back to our hotel to relax a little bit, and then we set out again for a little late night cup of tea. The city guide I used (100% Dublin, I buy these for every vacation) recommended this little shop called the tea garden, said it had about fifty different types of tea and that it was a very cozy place with cushions and books and boardgames. Well, it did have fifty types of tea, but the ones we tried weren’t as nice as we’d hoped, since they were super bitter. Also, what the city guide failed to mention, that this was not only a teashop, but also a place where you could smoke water pipe… We were quite surprised, because it gave a totally different vibe than what the city guide had mentioned. But we did have fun, sipping our tea and just relaxing a bit, talking about our plans for the rest of the vacation.

Dublin by night is absolutely amazing. The entire city is lighted by green lanterns and it was lovely to walk through this gorgeous lighted city. Especially this bridge looked pretty. It’s the Ha’penny bridge, one of Dublin’s highlights, because it was the first bridge where pedestrians could cross the Liffey, without having to use a little ferry.

And thus concludes our first day in the city of Dublin. Stay tuned for more!