30th Anniversary cont'd (part 2) aka Dublin days 1,2

Well our trip started in Ottawa, where we took a train to the stop where the shuttle to the Dorval international airport was. The airport has one of the best setups for international travel. The stores with the duty free are along the concourse leading to the airport departure lounges. So it needs to be noted that the young woman performing the watching of the carry on bags was checking her fingernails as our bags passed on the scanner. It was a comfortable flight with a nice bout of weather to greet us as we arrived. We took the city bus from the airport to the downtown stop closest to our hotel. We actually needed to take the light rail for 2 stops. We noticed after leaving the train that there was a place to put your ticket/pass to leave the platform, ooops. We went to our first hotel to decompress from the effects of flying eastward. It was a very nice hotel, with segregated bike lanes across the street and a canal on the other side of the lanes. We had to remember to carefully check the direction of travel as they drive on the opposite side of the roads in the British Isles. So we explored the downtown of Dublin and found the streets very easy to discern and discovered Stephen's green.

Our Hotel from which our Trafalgar trip left from was about 1km down the way across the canal. After exploring the downtown of Dublin and seeing lots of cyclists wear bright florescent green (got me wondering if it was the law). Noticed that there were different designs to their bike racks.

Below is the rack in use, pretty secure looking apparatus.

After seeing the racks in various places around town we continued on to the shopping mall street where the movie Once was made. And near there we found a small boutique called the House of Whisky (Irish spelling).

We bought a few bottles to try a sample of Irish and Scotch single malts. And it was here we tried the Japanese single malt and were pleasantly surprised at how good it was.

Finishing off the memories of first few days in Dublin. At the Dublin Museum (across from Stephen's green) we saw the bicycle named "the gift bicycle". As the story goes it never was paid for in cash.

And here is the bike, one of the owners was Stephen Roche winner of Tour in the late 80s.

Finishing here is a pic of one of the famous doors in Dublin.

Part 3 will continue with Dublin.