Today we went to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. This is a 7 story attraction which is roughly shaped like a pint glass inside and tells all about the makings of Guinness beer and its history. I was able to purchase tickets with points from my Citicard before going. The onsite admission price is 25 Euros. There is a free parking lot on the property that is manned by an attendant.
Once inside, the first thing we were shown on the ground floor was the contract that Arthur Guinness signed on December 31, 1759 for a 9000 year lease on the property. Arthur Guinness' signature from that lease is what is now replicated on all his beer products. Also on the ground floor are displays of how the beer is made.
The next floor has displays about cooperage. The coopers are those that made the wooden barrels for the beer. The wooden barrels have now been replaced with metal but it was a true artform.
The second floor is a tasting experience where we first smelled all the different components of the beer then had a miniature little glass of Guinness.
The third floor was all about advertising. There were numerous displays of past advertising icons.
The fourth floor was the Guinness Academy where you can learn to pour the perfect pint and the Connoisseur Experience where you can get a private tasting of their different beers. We skipped this floor and went up to the next floor which had a variety of restaurants.
The top floor was the Gravity Bar. This is where you got your free pint of beer. It was supposed to offer a nice panoramic view of the city while you enjoyed your beer. So... first problem was that it was wall to wall people up there. There was no place to sit or even put your beer down. Next, when you could finally get to the glass walls to see the city, well, honestly the city was pretty ugly. Miles of surrounding industrial buildings with an occasional historic church tower mingled among them.
We decided to take our beers down to the floor below us and have lunch at Arthur's Bar. After lunch we went back down to the ground floor and browsed their retail store. All in all we spent a good four hours at the Storehouse. Overall for this trip I'm glad we made the decision to do only one activity each day as I felt like it made the experience all the more enjoyable. We saw on numerous occasions people on tour buses rush in and out of places, trying to fit it all in. It looked a bit stressful.
After we were done at the Storehouse we headed to the airport to return our rental car and fly back to Amsterdam.
Goodbye Ireland
We had a late flight out and did not get to Amsterdam until 11:30 pm. We needed to take a bus to our next hotel the Moxy. The Moxy was not in the central part of town. The last bus left Centraal Station at 12:15 am. Our train from the airport got us to Centraal Station at midnight. We then ran up to the bus platforms, hubs spotted the right bus number and yelled for me to just get on, so we clamored aboard just as it was pulling out. Phew!
...BUT, then we discovered we were on the correct NUMBER bus, but it was going the WRONG WAY! Arghhhhhhh!!
We got off the bus as soon as we realized this but now we were already several miles in the wrong direction. We were standing somewhere in Amsterdam at 1am, not anywhere near our hotel, dragging our luggage around. We ended up walking to a large intersection and were lucky enough to flag down a taxi which took us to our hotel. By now we were both HOT, and TIRED, and our tempers were flaring. It was definitely time for bed!
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