"Great shopping, nice people/pubs &... " a Dublin Travel Page by Renescheffer

I prefered to go to Rome, Madrid, Nice or Munich thinking Dublin is too small and too full with pubs and tourists. But after a 5 days stay with my wife and two "Hibernofiel" friends Wieger and Emmy i must admit that Dublin is a "must see city". Good atmosphere, nice people and a lot of pubs; even the most "touristic" ones have an authentic character and clientele. There are much more shops/departement stores than i expected and there are nice and well kept parcs. You can go by Darttrain and/ore bus 45 to Bray for the seabreeze and some nice views onwards the sea and inland.

Tips: O Shea Merchant for traditional Irish music in a Pub or Arlington Pub/hall (busier and more touristy). For a cheap meal with wine go to Fitzers or Frazers (forgot the right name). Other possibilities are The Schack (a little upmarket) and Beshoff's (fisch & chips). Look at my restaurant tips.

Surprisingly there are a lot of shops In Dublin. Clarys, Penneys, Dunnes, Ilac center and in the south the St. Stephens Green Center and The Powercourt Townhouse (look on picture). I like the Earlstreet/Talbot street in the North. A lot of CD shops and little shops selling clothes half price. Lower middleclass area attracting
more upmarket clientele. Clothes are 20 % cheaper, meat 30 % cheaper, CD's same price. In supermarkets and grocerystores things are 30 % more expensie comparing with The Netherlands; wine even more. A bottle of French Red Pays d'Oc does 5,75 euro (3 in Nl and 2 in Germany).

We visited Arlington, Bachelor?s walk, a big one. A lot to do on saterdayevenings. Temple bar, more tourist especially English and some Dutch. The atmoshere in the afternoon was not too bad. A drunken young man from Birmingham was thrown out by the waiters. Our favourite is The O Shea on Merchant street, 10 minutes walk east from Temple bar along ther Liffeyriver. In the restaurant part there was country and western and later 80 and 90 s music, next door was traditional Irisch music. Dirty Old town is played a lot...i heard it four times in 5 days. I only knew the Poques version. On the opposite of O Shea is a very upmarket pub "the Golden brazen" with EEC employees and too beautifull and well dressed women that made us leave in 10 minutes.