European Extravaganza! Day Three: Planes and Trains!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (and Buses) was the menu for day three. We were up fairly early (7am, come on, we were on vacation) and out the door of the hostel to catch the bus to the airport at 9am for a noon flight. I didn't have any pictures of the Temple Bar area of Dublin yet. So early in the morning, well before anyone in Dublin was moving, we were out taking photos. Temple Bar is the artisan/nightlife/main tourist trap, but it is also a very cool old center of the original Viking city. You can even see the old fortress walls in places. Cool. And did I mention lots of pubs.

Aaaahhhh . . . Keg day at the pub. There is no cooler sight to behold in Ireland in the early morning than all the kegs that are to be picked up by Guinness. Those are three deep and twenty long, for an estimated 180 kegs. With 100 beers to a keg, that is about 1,800 beers of Guinness sitting on the street. Mmmmmmmmmmm . . . . . Ok moving on.

All the streets are narrow cobblestoned roads. Most of the time they are closed to traffic, except early in the day for deliveries. Just a little side note about cobble stones: Jess and I decided last time in Dublin that when you step on a loose cobblestone, that's where the Irish mafia just buried someone and they did a quick job and didn't use mortar. So next time in Dublin and you step on a loose stone, its dead people. We Steamboat kids are strange.

LOOK MA, More Pubs! That's a three story place called O'Neil's. Fun times!

One last time at Bewley's Coffee shop. We bought a ton of coffee and tea and "Posted" it back to the States before catching the bus to the airport.

Once in the air we had a three hour flight to Rome (which had really cool flight plan over Paris and the Alps), took a bus ride with a broken seat to the central train station, a quick stop at the Termini Gelato stand (the best in Italy) then jumped the wrong train to the right town of Naples. Once in Naples, we took the death cab from hell to our hostel. We spent more time driving down the wrong side of the yellow line than we did in our own lane. But we got there safe, somewhat sound and found our hostel in a large stinkin building. Really it smelled bad, cat pee, but the hostel was great! The people were warm and helpful and our rooms where located behind a thick steel door. Which was nice.

Ahh, Italy. Ti Amo.