(This post would take me for-EV-er to do as a one-part thing, so I'm dividing it in two: first Dublin, later Kerry.)
If you're single and you love to travel and experience new cultures, I recommend dating a foreigner. You know your country, they know theirs and you get to show each other around. It's even better if you meet a European and get married, because besides having a lovely partner you now get to spend as much time in European countries as you like (or as much time as you can afford to spend away from daily life). And Europeans usually like America...or at least parts of it. Sometimes, as in my case, they like it very, very much...so the benefit is mutual, a la "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."
It's also nice if you each speak another language or two; and if those languages are different. In our case, I speak Spanish and he speaks Irish Gaelic and passable French (some Parisians actually listen to him). That enables us to get around in a good few Western countries. Now, finding an Italian, Spanish or French-speaking European that you have chemistry with is another matter...
For the past two weeks, we were in Ireland - which is great because that's his turf and it's lovely visiting a foreign country with someone who's completely at home there. We spent a week in Dublin for work, a week in Kerry for play and a few days in Mullingar, visiting family.
I love finding little gems of places to eat, shop, hike, see, etc. and so I wanted to share some of those from Ireland...as usual, the eating places are healthy or at least high-quality, with good vegetarian or seafood options.
Let's start in Dublin, a place that many Americans swoon over due to their heritage and love of the Irish people. I've been there about five times now. Colm studied at Trinity and now he does some work, sometimes, at UCD. We usually stay at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, a nice hotel with a strange name. It isn't central, but it's near UCD and they have a gym in the basement and bring you complimentary tea while you're sitting in their lobby. It's very comfortable, and if you're going to drive to Jonnie Fox's, Ireland's highest pub just outside of Dublin towards the Wicklow Mountains, a great venue for Irish music and really nice pub food, it's a good place to stay at. There are buses every 10 minutes for under 2 euro that go to the town centre in about 20 minutes.
We went to Jonnie Fox's twice. First with one of Colm's students. I had escargot, which I love, and somehow I feel, as an animal lover who's 95% vegetarian, that it's really not a big deal to eat escargot. Snails have to be about as low on the food chain as you can get. They're also fairly good sources of protein and vitamin E. Just like almonds. And they sure are nice with herb butter on brown Irish soda bread. There were also mussels in cream sauce, Irish lamb stew, smoked salmon or fresh crab salads, vegetarian curry and plenty of other delicious things.
Jonnie Fox's is full of entertaining antiques and kitsch. Chamber pots on the loo doors, stockings hanging above the fireplace as though you've traveled back in time to before the invention of washing machines, old 'WANTED' posters and ladies toiletry ads on the walls, mining tools from two centuries ago secured to the ceiling, portraits of someone's great great grandparents...you get the idea. You don't run out of things to look at.
They also have live music seven nights a week. On Monday, our first visit, a man started singing very nice traditional Irish music on acoustic guitar at 9pm. The same guy was there on Thursday in the main dining area, but then as we were about to leave (after a dinner of smoked salmon salad, mussels in white wine sauce, an amazingly good carrot and sorrel soup, and a shared slice of whiskey cake), I passed a hallway on the other side of the bar and could hear a very enthusiastic fiddle, coming from some undiscovered part of the pub and saw people walking towards it as if they were on a mission. I pulled everyone down the hall and into a huge room full of long tables with benches, a stage at one end (in front of a giant old fireplace with more long stockings pinned to it) and a bar at the other. The tables were lit only with candles, some incredible Irish music was blasting and a four-piece band was setting up. Everyone was tapping their feet and clapping to the recorded music while bar staff fixed audience members with pints of Guinness. We managed to find seats and proceeded to have the best night I've ever had in Ireland.
The lead singer was a total comedian, making jokes in a lovely Irish accent the whole time. One of the members was supposedly one of the best musicians around, and from the way he played the fiddle and the tin whistle, I believed it. The other band members were awesome too, great on the guitar with lovely singing voices. It was one of those magic serendipitous things that you just can't manufacture. But going to Jonnie Fox's on a Thursday night at 9 pm would be a good start.
Two friends from Arizona arrived in Dublin a few days after we did, to get a much needed break from the 40 C/100+ F degree weather they'd had for months. One woman's cold and dreary is another man's paradise. I was entrusted with finding a dinner spot. I had made reservations at The Winding Stair, a bookshop/restaurant I've been wanting to go to for four years, but that didn't work out; instead, we ended up at Dunne and Crescenzi, which was atmospheric with gorgeous food. Their prices are in the middle, the Nero d'Avola wine we had was excellent and they served some of the best pesto I've ever tasted. I really love pesto.
I don't know how they did it: maybe they flew the basil in from Italy that afternoon. Maybe it was the olive oil. I'm guessing it was light on the cheese, medium light on the garlic, plenty of amazingly tender juicy basil and exceptional olive oil with pine nuts and gourmet salt. It was ground very fine, perhaps by hand in a mortar and pestle. Whatever was in it, it was good. The hake with artichoke puree and balsamic reduction was pretty nice, too.
After dinner we walked over to Dawson Street (which has restaurants like Carluccio's and The Farm, bars like Cafe en Seine and classy clubs like Sam Sara) and had half a pint at The Dawson Lounge.
Colm said it wasn't much bigger than a closet. The sign claims that it may be the world's smallest pub. It's actually not as claustrophobic as all that. But it is cozy. Go just to say you've been in there. Or go to Porterhouse Central on Nassau Street, just around the corner from Dawson Street in the direction of Trinity College, an independent brewery (no Guinness! good for those who want to support smaller companies, more artisan-crafted real ales and micro-brews).
The next day I googled "best cafe Dublin" and came up with Queen of Tarts, which has two locations very near to each other: a small tea shop on Cork Hill, Dame Street and a more spacious location on Cow's Lane, also off of Dame Street. I went to the shop on Cow's Lane and had a roasted vegetable, rocket and hummos sandwich on gluten free bread. Gorgeous and easy on the digestive system.
Obviously I had a tart, too: a plum tart, with a nice surprise of marzipan under the sweet-tangy plums.
There were many other tempting items...oh if I only had three stomachs...
Cow's Lane is perhaps my favourite street in Dublin in my favourite area of the city. It's in Temple Bar, a very touristy area, but Cow's Lane is away from all the touristy stuff: away from the chain stores, the high street stores, and full of independent shops like Cows Lane Designer Studio, full of collections by Irish artists: clothing, hats, jewelery, ceramics and other art. There's also the studio of Claire Garvey, an amazing designer whose creations I always stop to drool over.
There's more to Cow's Lane...a shop that combines antiques and art objects, a wine bar, another bakery or two if you walk downhill (toward the river, away from busy Dame Street) and turn right, a bookshop...spend a couple hours wandering around.
Other places to check out in Dublin: Powerscourt shopping centre has tons of great eye candy. I'm not a fan of malls or shopping centres but everything in this place is unique, beautiful, and they have some nice restaurants on all levels, like Cafe Fresh on the top floor with organic vegetarian food and a cupcake stand on the bottom floor that usually has free samples on its counters. Avoca, which is sort of like Anthropology but more, is located very near to Trinity Uni on Suffolk Street, but it also has other locations, including one on the Ring of Kerry. Avoca has lots of overpriced stuff that you don't really need but can still enjoy looking at, as well as an upscale cafe, which is also pricey. We ate at their Ring of Kerry spot later on in our trip and the lemon meringue pie was fabulous (and HUGE).
There were a number of other restaurant that I scoped out and took cards from while I was walking around, such as The Cedar Tree, a Lebanese restaurant that looked amazing; Salamanca, voted Dublin's best tapas in 2010; and Bruno's in Temple Bar, an elegant looking spot with upscale traditional Irish food.
Want a facial? There's a place called Lotus on Temple Road in the neighbourhood of Blackrock, near where we stayed, with a second location in the city centre at 54 Talbot Street. Aimee gave me a back massage and a facial with something called an "ultra-sonic scrubber" that was much more pleasant and far less 'scrapey' than it sounds. Actually, it was super fantastic and I plan to go again next time I'm in Dublin. I even contemplated buying my own ultra-sonic scrubber online. Check their website for internet specials.
Last but not least, we took a tour of the Bru na Boinne area in County Meath, about an hour's drive from Dublin centre, and went inside Newgrange, the oldest surviving building in the world (I think that's what they said - over 5,000 years old, older than the pyramids). Newgrange is a passage tomb built with sophisticated astrological knowledge, and probably not enjoyed by claustrophobics. Book your tickets in advance, by at least a week or so, because it's probably the most popular historical site to see in Ireland, aside from Dublin.
That's about it for Ireland part une. Ireland part deux coming soon!
If you're single and you love to travel and experience new cultures, I recommend dating a foreigner. You know your country, they know theirs and you get to show each other around. It's even better if you meet a European and get married, because besides having a lovely partner you now get to spend as much time in European countries as you like (or as much time as you can afford to spend away from daily life). And Europeans usually like America...or at least parts of it. Sometimes, as in my case, they like it very, very much...so the benefit is mutual, a la "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."
It's also nice if you each speak another language or two; and if those languages are different. In our case, I speak Spanish and he speaks Irish Gaelic and passable French (some Parisians actually listen to him). That enables us to get around in a good few Western countries. Now, finding an Italian, Spanish or French-speaking European that you have chemistry with is another matter...
For the past two weeks, we were in Ireland - which is great because that's his turf and it's lovely visiting a foreign country with someone who's completely at home there. We spent a week in Dublin for work, a week in Kerry for play and a few days in Mullingar, visiting family.
I love finding little gems of places to eat, shop, hike, see, etc. and so I wanted to share some of those from Ireland...as usual, the eating places are healthy or at least high-quality, with good vegetarian or seafood options.
Let's start in Dublin, a place that many Americans swoon over due to their heritage and love of the Irish people. I've been there about five times now. Colm studied at Trinity and now he does some work, sometimes, at UCD. We usually stay at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, a nice hotel with a strange name. It isn't central, but it's near UCD and they have a gym in the basement and bring you complimentary tea while you're sitting in their lobby. It's very comfortable, and if you're going to drive to Jonnie Fox's, Ireland's highest pub just outside of Dublin towards the Wicklow Mountains, a great venue for Irish music and really nice pub food, it's a good place to stay at. There are buses every 10 minutes for under 2 euro that go to the town centre in about 20 minutes.
We went to Jonnie Fox's twice. First with one of Colm's students. I had escargot, which I love, and somehow I feel, as an animal lover who's 95% vegetarian, that it's really not a big deal to eat escargot. Snails have to be about as low on the food chain as you can get. They're also fairly good sources of protein and vitamin E. Just like almonds. And they sure are nice with herb butter on brown Irish soda bread. There were also mussels in cream sauce, Irish lamb stew, smoked salmon or fresh crab salads, vegetarian curry and plenty of other delicious things.
Jonnie Fox's is full of entertaining antiques and kitsch. Chamber pots on the loo doors, stockings hanging above the fireplace as though you've traveled back in time to before the invention of washing machines, old 'WANTED' posters and ladies toiletry ads on the walls, mining tools from two centuries ago secured to the ceiling, portraits of someone's great great grandparents...you get the idea. You don't run out of things to look at.
They also have live music seven nights a week. On Monday, our first visit, a man started singing very nice traditional Irish music on acoustic guitar at 9pm. The same guy was there on Thursday in the main dining area, but then as we were about to leave (after a dinner of smoked salmon salad, mussels in white wine sauce, an amazingly good carrot and sorrel soup, and a shared slice of whiskey cake), I passed a hallway on the other side of the bar and could hear a very enthusiastic fiddle, coming from some undiscovered part of the pub and saw people walking towards it as if they were on a mission. I pulled everyone down the hall and into a huge room full of long tables with benches, a stage at one end (in front of a giant old fireplace with more long stockings pinned to it) and a bar at the other. The tables were lit only with candles, some incredible Irish music was blasting and a four-piece band was setting up. Everyone was tapping their feet and clapping to the recorded music while bar staff fixed audience members with pints of Guinness. We managed to find seats and proceeded to have the best night I've ever had in Ireland.
The lead singer was a total comedian, making jokes in a lovely Irish accent the whole time. One of the members was supposedly one of the best musicians around, and from the way he played the fiddle and the tin whistle, I believed it. The other band members were awesome too, great on the guitar with lovely singing voices. It was one of those magic serendipitous things that you just can't manufacture. But going to Jonnie Fox's on a Thursday night at 9 pm would be a good start.
Two friends from Arizona arrived in Dublin a few days after we did, to get a much needed break from the 40 C/100+ F degree weather they'd had for months. One woman's cold and dreary is another man's paradise. I was entrusted with finding a dinner spot. I had made reservations at The Winding Stair, a bookshop/restaurant I've been wanting to go to for four years, but that didn't work out; instead, we ended up at Dunne and Crescenzi, which was atmospheric with gorgeous food. Their prices are in the middle, the Nero d'Avola wine we had was excellent and they served some of the best pesto I've ever tasted. I really love pesto.
I don't know how they did it: maybe they flew the basil in from Italy that afternoon. Maybe it was the olive oil. I'm guessing it was light on the cheese, medium light on the garlic, plenty of amazingly tender juicy basil and exceptional olive oil with pine nuts and gourmet salt. It was ground very fine, perhaps by hand in a mortar and pestle. Whatever was in it, it was good. The hake with artichoke puree and balsamic reduction was pretty nice, too.
After dinner we walked over to Dawson Street (which has restaurants like Carluccio's and The Farm, bars like Cafe en Seine and classy clubs like Sam Sara) and had half a pint at The Dawson Lounge.
Colm said it wasn't much bigger than a closet. The sign claims that it may be the world's smallest pub. It's actually not as claustrophobic as all that. But it is cozy. Go just to say you've been in there. Or go to Porterhouse Central on Nassau Street, just around the corner from Dawson Street in the direction of Trinity College, an independent brewery (no Guinness! good for those who want to support smaller companies, more artisan-crafted real ales and micro-brews).
The next day I googled "best cafe Dublin" and came up with Queen of Tarts, which has two locations very near to each other: a small tea shop on Cork Hill, Dame Street and a more spacious location on Cow's Lane, also off of Dame Street. I went to the shop on Cow's Lane and had a roasted vegetable, rocket and hummos sandwich on gluten free bread. Gorgeous and easy on the digestive system.
Obviously I had a tart, too: a plum tart, with a nice surprise of marzipan under the sweet-tangy plums.
There were many other tempting items...oh if I only had three stomachs...
Cow's Lane is perhaps my favourite street in Dublin in my favourite area of the city. It's in Temple Bar, a very touristy area, but Cow's Lane is away from all the touristy stuff: away from the chain stores, the high street stores, and full of independent shops like Cows Lane Designer Studio, full of collections by Irish artists: clothing, hats, jewelery, ceramics and other art. There's also the studio of Claire Garvey, an amazing designer whose creations I always stop to drool over.
There's more to Cow's Lane...a shop that combines antiques and art objects, a wine bar, another bakery or two if you walk downhill (toward the river, away from busy Dame Street) and turn right, a bookshop...spend a couple hours wandering around.
Other places to check out in Dublin: Powerscourt shopping centre has tons of great eye candy. I'm not a fan of malls or shopping centres but everything in this place is unique, beautiful, and they have some nice restaurants on all levels, like Cafe Fresh on the top floor with organic vegetarian food and a cupcake stand on the bottom floor that usually has free samples on its counters. Avoca, which is sort of like Anthropology but more, is located very near to Trinity Uni on Suffolk Street, but it also has other locations, including one on the Ring of Kerry. Avoca has lots of overpriced stuff that you don't really need but can still enjoy looking at, as well as an upscale cafe, which is also pricey. We ate at their Ring of Kerry spot later on in our trip and the lemon meringue pie was fabulous (and HUGE).
There were a number of other restaurant that I scoped out and took cards from while I was walking around, such as The Cedar Tree, a Lebanese restaurant that looked amazing; Salamanca, voted Dublin's best tapas in 2010; and Bruno's in Temple Bar, an elegant looking spot with upscale traditional Irish food.
Want a facial? There's a place called Lotus on Temple Road in the neighbourhood of Blackrock, near where we stayed, with a second location in the city centre at 54 Talbot Street. Aimee gave me a back massage and a facial with something called an "ultra-sonic scrubber" that was much more pleasant and far less 'scrapey' than it sounds. Actually, it was super fantastic and I plan to go again next time I'm in Dublin. I even contemplated buying my own ultra-sonic scrubber online. Check their website for internet specials.
Last but not least, we took a tour of the Bru na Boinne area in County Meath, about an hour's drive from Dublin centre, and went inside Newgrange, the oldest surviving building in the world (I think that's what they said - over 5,000 years old, older than the pyramids). Newgrange is a passage tomb built with sophisticated astrological knowledge, and probably not enjoyed by claustrophobics. Book your tickets in advance, by at least a week or so, because it's probably the most popular historical site to see in Ireland, aside from Dublin.
That's about it for Ireland part une. Ireland part deux coming soon!
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