Dublin

We didn't know a lot about Dublin before we visited, but it's a very interesting place with a turbulent history. It seemed to lack the beautiful architecture that we've seen in a lot of the other cities, which makes sense when you learn that it was a very poor country until fairly recently. The guide on the walking tour that we took compared the city to a poor person who won the lottery - in other words, when their economy took off in the 1990s, they spent their money on really silly things. One example he gave was a huge clock that they put in the riverbed that counted down to the new millennium - unfortunately, the river water was so dirty that the clock couldn't be read from above. Whoops!

City view:


Dublin Castle - a good example of the interesting architecture around the city (all five of the structures you see are part of the same building):


Traditional fish & chips - it's hard to tell from the picture, but this was a huge amount of food, all just dumped in a paper bag for takeaway: