I was using TripAdvisor and the TripAdvisor Dublin App to help find restaurants and sites and plan our travels and I stumbled across a self guided walking tour. Since we’ve become big fans of the Frommer’s Self Guided Walking Tours we decided to give the TripAdvisor App a try.

We started out walking over to Christ Church Cathedral. The church itself was founded in the 11th Century.  This building is what I’d consider the quintessential Dublin church – look at it. If this doesn’t screen medieval Irish architecture, I don’t know what does.

MS taking a picture of Christ Church Cathedral

The TripAdvisor App directed us from the Cathedral down Wood Quay where you will find bronze slabs along the pavement, indicating the location where ancient artifacts were found.  We continued to the  new Dublin City Council building, which is a modern building with what appears to be an old Atari Logo, don’t you think?

We continued to walk to the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which is home to hundreds of little pubs and restaurants.  We walk down Dame Street past the Olympia Theatre which has an amazing (albeit restored) cast iron and and stained glass canopy.

Dame Street with the Olympia Theatre on the left

Restored cast iron and stained glass canopy

Our quick walking tour ended as we entered Temple Bar and we decided to hit a few pubs, for some Guinness and ultimately some dinner, which I’ll write about next time.  We had a really great time and this impromptu TripAdvisor walking tour. The app indicates this tour takes half a day — it took us much less than two hours.  These tours (not only on the app, but in various travel guides) always seem to have so much extra time built into them — I’ve never taken nearly the time the guidebooks say I should on these self guided tours.

Our walking tour was quite nice – our own pace, spending as much time was we want at each location and if necessary, spend only a few minutes at a location.  All in all, the walking tour app was good for what is was, plus it is a hell of a lot lighter than lugging around a tour book.

Next up…the food of Ireland and it’s not all mutton and shortbread.

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