It is a totally nothing day today. We have an early flight out tomorrow, so we are moving to an airport hotel with a shuttle for our departure in the morning. Which means we have bupkus to do today. We are up early, as usual, and because it is such a gorgeous day decide to walk over to St. Stephen’s Green again for our morning exercise. It is beautiful as always there, and as we walk around, we stop at all the informational signage to refresh our memories on the Rebellion and what monuments are included here in the park.

Back at the hotel, we enjoy a late (for us at least) leisurely breakfast, then organize the bags and head downstairs at the appointed time for our driver pick up. All that goes smoothly and our driver gives us some great suggestions on what to do and where to eat here near the airport. He points in the direction of a pub up the street that he says has excellent food, and music in the evenings, as well as tells us we should visit Swords, a little town up the road. Love that everyone is so helpful with suggestions of things to do!

We’re too early to check into the hotel, but not too early for lunch, so we give our bags to the desk clerk and head out to Kealy’s Gastropub as recommended by our driver. About a 20 minute walk, literally right up past the airport, we arrive at the deep blue painted pub a little after noon – perfect timing for lunch. They even have a nice little space out back where we can eat outside. Lovely.

Sitting in the sun (until the clouds roll over and we have to move to a table closer to the wall to be under cover when it begins to pour down rain) we have a totally enjoyable lunch of fish and chips and beet root and goat cheese salad.

Plus the lovely waitress talks to us about her trip to New York City earlier in the year and also tells us we should visit Swords, which is where she lives, and it is just up the road a bit, we can walk. Ok, so we all know that everyone walks everywhere in Europe – but come on! It is an hour’s walk from here. We could take the bus, for sure. But, um. Nope. We’re happy with our lunch here and then just chilling at the hotel for the rest of the afternoon. But thanks for all the great suggestions and support!

Whiling away the time after we check in, we eventually make our way down to the Mayfly restaurant – next to the Kitty Hawks bar and cafe mind you, that wasn’t open, but was the same as the restaurant? I know, confusing, we never did figure out where we ate, but we did have dinner in a hugely noisy bar/restaurant type area in the hotel! Oddly enough, this must have been the local hot spot, because the large group of noisy people all left in cars when they were done.

At any rate, we had a good bowl of soup (well Ed did), a Caesar Salad for me and a burger for Ed and we happily returned to our room for our last night in Dublin. Tomorrow….Greece! And the last leg of our journey.