From Cork to Dublin / A Day in Dublin

Ireland Days 5 & 6 | Last Day in Cork | Train from Cork to Dublin | A Day Exploring Dublin | August 2025

On our last day in Cork, we enjoyed one last delicious breakfast for the day before packing up and checking out of our room. Our train to Dublin wouldn’t leave until the afternoon, so we stored our luggage in some lockers, then set out for our last few hours exploring Cork. We mapped out some of the monuments, parks, and other highlights we hadn’t yet seen, and planned our walking route around them. We saw the National Monument, Fitzgerald Park, the historic Gaol (jail), St. Anne’s Church, the Cathedral of St. Mary & St. Anne, as well as many other churches, historic buildings, and idyllic scenery through the narrow streets and along the River Lee.

As we were wrapping up our hours long walk, we made our way back into the town center and found some gelato, as it was starting to get quite warm out, and then went on a hunt for a Dr. Pepper. We had been seeing Coke everywhere, but I was certain I had seen Dr. Pepper somewhere through a window on our first night, so we searched until we found it in a convenience store. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit as good as we imagined it would, because it tasted like a diet and it didn’t advertise its ‘23 flavors’ like they do in the states.

We made our way back to our hotel to retrieve our luggage, then made our way to the train station. On our way, Curtis stopped in an antique store to see if he could find some pre-Euro Irish coins, but was unsuccessful at getting a reasonable deal on them. We finished our walk and boarded our train to Dublin. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Cork — I had honestly never heard of the town before we visited, but it truly was the best place to begin our Irish adventure. Being much smaller than Dublin, it was easier to get around, but it was also big enough to have plenty of buses and trains connecting us to many other smaller towns.

The train ride back to Dublin went smoothly, and two and a half hours later we arrived back in the city. It was around 5:30 when we arrived, and our time here started with a 30 minute walk to our hotel, an Aloft, also using our Marriott points. The sky was grey and it was cooler here, in contrast with the warm and sunny day we left behind in Cork, and the walk wasn’t as scenic and had me missing the smaller towns already. But we only had 3 nights here, and were willing to devote a day to getting to know this city a bit better.

We checked in to our hotel, and this time instead of getting a free breakfast, we were given daily credit to their rooftop bar. Breakfast would probably have been preferable, but we certainly made the most of that credit and enjoyed the city views along with our drinks. For all 3 nights here, we stuck to simple dinners, taking advantage of the ‘meal deal’ at the closest convenience store, which got us a sandwich, side, and drink for 5 Euros.

For our time in Dublin, we spent one full day exploring the city. That day happened to coincide with the Bank Holiday, but thankfully that didn’t impede with the plans we had made. We started our day by setting off on foot to view the St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Christ Church Cathedral, both North of where we were staying. We then made our way East, past the Dublin Castle and city hall, and eventually ended up at Trinity College. We passed on seeing the Book of Kells because of the long line, but Curtis found a letterbox here. We saw the Oscar Wilde house and Parliament building before beginning our main focuses of the day: touring the National Gallery of Ireland and the National Museum of Ireland. Both of these museums were free, and we spent a good 2-3 hours in each of them. I think it’s pretty safe to say that we saw some of the oldest objects and pieces of art that we’ve ever seen. This was different than all our other days of this trip, with all this time spent inside these museums, but it was an interesting way to spend the day and we’re thankful for the opportunity to do that while sticking to a budget!

The real highlight of the day was honestly the lunch we enjoyed in between the two museums. We were struggling to find a place that was open because of the holiday, and ended up stopping into a small coffee house/bakery/sandwich shop where we had one of the best sandwiches ever – the Italiano Classic from the Beanhive. We enjoyed it along with a muffin sitting in the lawn of S. Stephen’s Green, which was probably my highlight from our entire time in Dublin. After our day of learning and exploring, we made our way back to our hotel for drinks and relaxing for our final day in Ireland.

I know there’s a lot more in Dublin that we didn’t see, but overall I’m glad we spent much more time in Cork and think that any more time in the city would have been too much for us. It’s just bigger, busier, and not as clean, and it takes a lot more time to get out of the city when going for day trips outside. That being said, we’re glad we stopped, and we definitely appreciated that it had the cheapest flights for a last minute vacation to Europe!