Ireland day 1351. Tuesday 10 June 2025- UK Visitor Day 2

Today’s summary	Spent most of the day in Dublin as Val’s friend had a couple of appointments. Val and I accompanied her to the first one, then walked south across Dublin and ended up at Grafton Street, where together we chose and bought my present to Val for her forthcoming birthday. Celebrated a successful purchase with brunch at Bewley’s then met up with our friend again at the EPIC Centre. A quick diesel back to Malahide then roast chicken, caponata and red wine for dinner. Looked at some of my photos of Japan in the evening
Today’s weather	Dry and sunny (hooray). Light north westerly breeze. Appx 17c

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

Commentary

Val and I needed to go into Dublin this week to do some shopping. (More on that improbable development later). And today presented an ideal opportunity to do it, as the friend we have staying with us at the moment had a couple of meetings arranged in Dublin today, and we decided to accompany her for the journeys in and out of town.

The first meeting was to the north of Parnell Place, so we got off the train at Tara Street and caught the number 1 bus up there. Once she was safely delivered to her rendezvous point at the appointed time of 11am, Val and I walked back south, and crossed the river to make our way to Grafton Street. It’s Val’s birthday on Sunday and I am paranoid about buying her the Wrong Thing as a present. I had therefore concluded that it would be safest for us to go shopping together to select the most appropriate gift.

As it happened, Val had a good idea of what she wanted and fortunately for us both (and to my enormous relief), Russell and Bromley had exactly what she had in mind. With the purchase secured, we celebrated this minor retail triumph with a delicious brunch at Bewley’s café, which is also in Grafton Street – almost next door in fact.

After dining, we had a look round some of the outlets in the adjacent shopping district, then walked out to a nearby French restaurant to make a booking for a celebratory lunch on Val’s birthday itself. Then we dropped in at the Irish Film Institute to admire the new glass roof, and from there headed back across the river to the EPC centre, where our guest was having her second meeting.

We all duly met up at about 2pm and after a quick cup of tea, hiked the short distance to Connolly and caught a very timely non-stop diesel back to Malahide. Once safely returned to base, Val and I drove round to the garden centre to buy some bird food, and our guest caught up on some emails.

The rest of the evening was spent chatting, enjoying dinner (roast chicken, caponata vegetables and red wine) and then we looked at some of my photos from Japan on the TV. So overall it was a nice relaxing meandery sort of day, made especially enjoyable by the good company and by the good weather.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Parnell Place, at the top of O’Connell Street	In Bewley’s enjoying a late breakfast. I had to have extra black pudding on the side. Well, I felt like I needed building up

New roof at the IFI – a great improvement as the old one was cracked and looked like it was in danger of collapsing	Healthy dining options in the Temple Bar

At the EPIC Centre where we finished our meandering. To be honest, I don’t know what the history of the archway is	In the EPIC Centre atrium – a great place to enjoy your packed lunch with a cup of coffee from one of the surrounding cafés. Especially when it’s cold wet and windy outside

Leaving Temple Bar and heading to the Ha’penny Bridge, through the Merchant’s Arch