Ireland day 0459. Saturday 31 December 2022- Ending 2022 *

Ireland day 0459. Saturday 31 December 2022- Ending 2022

Today’s summary	Val was at work and I went into Dublin to check out a couple of sights from a recent Anthony Bourdain documentary. Celebrated the end of 2022 and the start of 2023 with bubbly in the flat in the evening
Today’s weather	Bright with some sun but heavy showers in the morning. Light south – easterly wind. Appx 8C.

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Dublin last walk of 2022

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Val was working at the museum today so after completing some Spanish practice in the morning, I headed into Dublin to check out a couple of the sights highlighted in an Anthony Bourdain documentary on Dublin that I watched over Christmas.

A very enjoyable afternoon wander, taking in the Ulysses Rare Books bookshop, and the Fallon & Byrne food hall. Both were on my list and were very interesting but unreassuringly expensive.

We had a quiet evening in the flat enjoying a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the end of 2022, and watching a couple of episodes of “Homeland”. Happy to be back in Ireland!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


In the EPIC centre hall. A good spot for packed lunch and a cup of tea this afternoon	The iconic GPO on O’Connell Street. Sadly it was closed in preparation for the new year, which was a shame as I wanted to buy some stamps

Lots of expensive first editions here in the Ulysses Rare Books shop	Crowds in Grafton Street. Actually Dublin wasn’t as busy as I expected it to be on New Years eve. I’m sure it livens up later

I’m amazed that it has taken nearly a year and a half for me to find this treasure trove – Fallon & Byrne on Exchequer Street	A snip at €350 a bottle. Mind you it scores 4.5 on Vivino so presumably it’s worth it.

In the food hall. The things that look like avocado pears in the box at front right are actually chocolate oranges – though they are made of orange rather than chocolate, unlike the Terry’s variety. Never heard of them before. But the search for Sevilles will start soon – F&B might be worth checking out, seeing as they seem to specialise in odd looking citrus fruit.