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  On Monday morning, 27th January,
I took an Allitalia plane from Brussels to Dublin, Ireland, with a group
of 30 trainees of the European Commission. After checking into the "Avalon
House" hostel we went to see the Old Library at Trinity College with its
famous Book of Kells in the afternoon. Later that day we made a Literary
Pub Crawl through Dublin pubs with a literary history. The evening ended
at Dublin's top nightclub "Lillie's Bordello".
After a reception with the Lord
Mayor of Dublin on Tuesday morning we visited Dublin castle andChristchurch
Cathedral. The evening was spent in a pub in Bray "The Pickled Pig" with
live music and afterwards at U2's own nightclub "The Kitchen". The techno
music there wasn't my taste though.
 
Very early on Wednesday morning
we were driven by coach to the Irish west coast where we embarked on a
ferry to the Aran Islands. These islands are very bare but beautiful. There
are rocks and
stones all over the place. We made a tour of the biggest island Inishmore
with its main attraction Dun Aengus, a pre-historical stone fortress, situated
on top of some impressive cliffs, with mini-busses which could be rented
on the spot. Our accommodation this night was the "Great Western House"
hostel in Galway.
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 The
following morning we walked around Galway's pretty town centre. Afterwards
our coach took us through the beautiful wild landscape of Connemara and
to romantic Kylemore Abbey. In the evening we arrived in Boyle where we
went to a pub with traditional Irish music played by locals and a storyteller.
It was past midnight when we hit the road again back to Dublin . Once more
we spent the remainder of the night at "Avalon House".
 On
Friday morning we went to the Irish-European Association followed by a
visit to the  National
Museum. In the afternoon we visited the residence of the Irish president,
Mrs. Mary Robinson. We were actually supposed to meet her there personally
but unfortunately she was prevented from coming. In the evening we went
to an Italian restaurant and to the pubs "The Globe" and "Foggy Dew".
On Saturday, 1st February, at
midday it was time to go home again. In spite of going to Ireland in January
we didn't have any rain! Five days were really not enough time to see all
of Ireland's attractions, so I'm sure I'll be back one day! |
