Nice little day trip (Malahide Castle)

Member Name: dswhite

Product:	Malahide Castle
Date:	11/05/05 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: interesting day trip, not too long for kids

Disadvantages: none

I have recently visited Dublin for a weekend and had the pleasure of taking a trip to Malahide Castle.

The Malahide Castle is one of the main tourist attractions offered by the Dublin tourist board. It is located North of Dublin. You can get there by local bus or a train called Dart or if you like to be part of a tourist herd, you can jump on the bus provided by a company such as Dublin Bus which will take you there and back with a scenic tour of Dublin Bay for about 20 Euros.

I have chosen the latter.

Like mentioned before, the tour is offered by couple of bus companies and it ranges from 20 -25 Euros as far as I remember. Different companies run it at different times but the one I chose was at 10am and it lasts about 3 hours.

As my experience was on the bus tour I will describe how it went. The bus left from centre of Dublin, from O'Connell Street , near the Liffey river. The ride to the Castle takes probably about 40-50 minutes and takes you through various neigbourhoods of Dublin. If you are lucky, you will get a talkative driver like ours who gave us loads of stories and some Irish songs as well when he had nothing to say. I can conclude the ride to the castle itself was very entertaining.

Once there, we were given just about an hour on Castle grounds. The Malahide Castle is not particuarly big but it has few rooms with furniture and decor from different periods. The Castle itself was owned by the Talbot family from 1100's till 1970's so you have a bit of history there. You don' t get a tour guide however, a nice lady in the first room explains that there is a voice over that tells you about each room and the house and directs you where to go next. You can get a translation of the voice overs in other languages as well.

Overall, I liked the Castle although it was just a bit dissapointing that it was more like a large house. It looks like a castle, not a house though....If you have an interest in history and architecture etc. you will probably enjoy it. There are several paintings of famous and less famous people in there as well. Should you get tired and hungry/thirsty they also have a cafe where you can replenish your oh so tired body after visiting the castle for a mere 30 minutes. Or you can visit the gift shop. Or both.

On this particular tour, we were given about 20 minutes after the tour to visit the cafe and shop or walk around in the park . I enjoyed a bit of sunshine and flowers outside and took couple of pictures of my husband with the castle in the background.

After we got back to the bus, we went on a scenic ride on the coast and went past a touristy village called Howth which had a large marina and everyone was happy to take pictures. We also stopped on the coast to take some more pictures ( as if we have never seen the sea - but I took pictures as well).

Overall, it was a nice way to spend a day. It's not too long to take your kids with you without them being bored stiff and it takes you out of the city.

Should you want to visit the Malahide Castle using own transport, the entry is 6.25 Euros for adults. Rates for teenagers and kids are cheaper. One thing I remember from their website is that they are closed between 12:45 and 2pm but if you're on the organized tour, you don't have to worry about that.

I should also mention that you can use The Dublin Pass which allows you to visit many attractions and costs about 60 Euros for 3 days. It's worth it if you plan to visit many places as a lot of them don't take that long.

Summary: