Useful information about Dublin

Today let’s talk about some practical information for a trip to Dublin (and some personal ideas)

Let’s start with the useful information about Dublin and I begin with the addresses of the two main offices of Dublin tourism board:
– “Dublin visitor center” at 17 O’Connell Street Lower.
– “Tourist Office Dublin” to 37 College Green.
I went to the office to college green, where I found a very precise staff, attentive and friendly. In the city center, however, you can find many other venues where to get information and book tours in Dublin and in the surrounding area.
Let’s go ahead and talk about the practical information to move from the airport into the city (and vice versa, of course).
Buses from the airport to the city center are really a lot. To name three that I’ve seen go through Merrion Square and in the center:
– AIRLINK (8,50€ one way)
– 757 (6€ one way 10€ with return)
– 702
I tried the AIRLINK on my return to Rome and from Merrion Square to the airport it took about 30 minutes. It stops at Terminal 2 and then at the terminal 1 (from where Ryanair flights depart). When I arrived in Dublin, the 13th of September, I took the taxi from the airport to Merrion Square and I spent 30 euro.
For public transportations around town you can buy the Leap Card (if you have been in London it works similarly to the oyster card) and use it in one of the two existing version:
1) “pay as you go”: the recharged with an amount chosen by you and, from time to time, there is deducted from the ticket price
2) you can purchase a 1, 3 or 7 days pass
If you use it in the “pay as you go” remember these two things:
– You must tell the bus driver the exact bus stop where you want to get off so that he can deduct from your card the exact price of the ticket;
– You can charge it in many stores around the city: from the tourist board offices to the minimarket, passing through convenience stores and bookshops and stationers! All the shops expose a small sign of the same green color of the paper outside the shop.
I recommend you to buy it in a tourism board office even if you can’t pay in cash, but only with me credit card: I wanted to buy the 7-day pass, but the lady at the desk told me that for two days there would be a bus strike and she suggested me to don’t buy a 7 days pass.
It hasn’t always easy to figure out which bus I should take to get somewhere in the city and few times I used google maps to see its suggestions about it: at the various bus stops I wasn’t able to find any kind of indication about (each) bus stop. I suggest you to take a map with some indication about Dublin’s tram and the DART.
The city center is, however, easy to get around on foot and you can reach almost all the places of touristic interest without having to take a bus.
To reach the small village of Howth you can use the DART: a suburban train line that you can always take using the Leap card. It has a “U-shaped” path and the Connoly station seems to be one of main stations along the way. For a trip “go and back” I spent about 4 euro (about this quick trip outside of Dublin, however, I’ll tell you all in a dedicated post).
The Dublin’s shopping streets are mainly two: Grafton street, close to Trinity College and the one formed by Henry Street and Mary Street, which are one the continuation of the other and which are a unique crossroad that separates upper O’Connell street from O’Connell street lower; on Mary Street there are some shopping centers (in addition to stores of various brands such as MAC for makeup, gamestop for video games, Marks & Spencer and forever21 for clothing)
Airport Terminal 2: at the Ryanair desks there is an automatic procedure for those people who have an hold luggage (there are still some staff members ready to assist you in the procedure). I found a very large airport with a large area dedicated to shopping. Don’t forget to control which is your gate of departure: some are very far and you have to walk quite a lot)
Last two useful information:
– The sockets are the same as in Britain, so you’ll need an adapter (if you have been in London and you bought one there it will be fine);
– Driving is on the left, just as in Britain (and in the former colonies of the United Kingdom). If you rent a car, be careful!

Let’s move on now to some personal considerations I have gained during my week stay in Dublin
Despite my good level of english knowledge, the first few days I had some difficulty understanding the language and to understand, therefore, what they were saying! They have a different accent from the one in London (and the UK) and I discovered that a lot of tourists (non-English native speakers) had my same problem.
I found always very nice and friendly people, very willing to give me the information I needed. I could see this kindness even in front of people who needed help and did not speak English very well. To give you an example: the day I went in Howth I was looking for the Connoly station and a gentleman realized that I had lost and was kind enough to stop me, telling me I was going in the wrong direction and directed me to the station.
There are lots of renovation and construction work, a sign of a city that is changing and evolving (also pretty quickly). Despite this, however, I found a city that seeks to evolve without abandoning the “old”, which is still tells a story.