To The Home of Guinness

The trip becomes a pilgrimage today as I am off to Dublin, the home for Guinness and the Site of the Guinness Brewhouse Museum. I have been collecting Guinness items for about 15 years. Some of the other people in the Beer Can collecting club started specialising in different overseas breweries as there was not enough space to house all their collection. It was a way of streamlining the space devoted to international beer cans as their Australian collection grew.

As I had quite a bit of Guinness memorabilia I decided to specialise collecting Guinness as well as my Australian collection. I had previously visited the brewery in Dublin in 1989 when I was on a football tour around the France, Great Britain and Ireland but had not thought of collecting anything while there.

Getting up this morning it was a bright and sunny day. I quickly put my washing back out as it was still wet. By the time I left for the airport most of it was dry and I had to pack a few items in a plastic bag as they were still wet. Stewart dropped me off with plenty of time to spare and I stood at the end of an already long queue for the check-in.

RyanAir has a 15kg limit on luggage per person. As this is a side trip not on my original Round World ticket on frequent flyer points I can not go over this weight for my checked luggage. Most other airlines are 20kg for checked luggage.

On this trip, using my frequent flyer miles I can have the largest luggage allowance of any of the three airlines I have to travel with as part of the round the world ticket. On this trip that is 23kg on the British Airlines flights, so Qantas and Cathay Pacific need to allow me to carry this luggage weight if required.

Waiting to get to the counter a few people in front of me had to take things out of their suitcases as they had to much weight at the weigh-in. When I got to the counter I had 18.2kg's in my case. So I also had to reduce the weight or pay a 36 British Pound fee for being over weight.

As I was using the new solid plastic case I got at Heathrow I knew I could be in trouble as it is heavier than the original one I had. I was able to remove my good jacket and put some of my clothes into my carry on bag and tried again. It was still 15.6kg but the lady on check in let the bag through without any cost.

Going through customs was not a problem but checking the board for the departure time etc. the board said that the flight was delayed 30 minutes. The plane ended up leaving about 40 minutes late and within the hour I had landed in Dublin. I purchased a ticket at the Irish Tourism Board counter at the airport and got a 12 Euro return ticket on the Aircoach, which goes into the centre of Dublin. If you require it drops off at three points in the city and then continues to the south side of Dublin along one of two routes.

I got of the bus at the first stop and got a taxi the rest of the way to the Harding Hotel. I picked this hotel because it is close to the Guinness Brewery and also on the western edge of the Temple Bar area. Temple Bar is the nightlife area on the south side of the river Liffey. It was not a long taxi ride to the hotel and I checked in. The hotel has Wi-Fi so I will be able to keep the blog going for the whole time in Dublin.

I only chose a single room in the Hotel, meaning a single bed in a smallish room but it is a lot cheaper than the larger rooms. I am paying $A 110 per night for the centre of Dublin which is an expensive city. The cost of food and drinks are quite high.

I went out for a walk after I got settled walking down Dame Street towards Trinity College. There were tourists everywhere, add to that the people coming out of their offices the footpaths were very busy. Dublin is like every other city with plenty of tourist souvenir shops scattered in the shops. Every shop is full of Guinness items plus everything else seems to be in Green, White and Orange.

I wandered around the streets for approx. 2 hours getting my bearings and picking up some drinks and food for the fridge in my room. I also went in to a few pubs to get the feel for them as well. It is a collectors feast with every pub having coasters to collect. You do get a lot of the same coasters in the pubs but I was still able to get 7 different beers and 2 other drinks coasters. Then I went back to the hotel and had dinner in the restaurant which is to the side of the hotel and open to the general public from a separate entrance.

I then went up to my room and watched some television whilst writing up yesterdays blog and posting it plus editing a lot of the photos I have taken which are yet to go up on the Flickr page.

I stayed up quite late watching live Olympic events and by the time I turned the T.V off to go to sleep it was 2.40am Dublin time.

Collecting:

7 Beer coasters (but no Guinness ones) plus 1 Bulmer Cider & 1 Southern Comfort.