Dublin where for art thou?

 One thing I have noted about the big cities is that there is the tourist version and the real version. I suppose that makes sense. Over here it’s so much more obvious.   

London was a big busy mix of tourists and locals. Just overwhelmingly crowded everywhere you went. It’s obvious there were a lot of tourists but there were a lot of londoners too. London is so diverse, every other person spoke a different language. London was very distinct with its own history and culture.

Edinburgh is another big tourist city. Oriented toward tourists. However it still maintained a real sense of Scottish culture with the bagpipes and kilts and overall feel of it. The castle, the port, the atmosphere. 

Dublin is an interesting city. It is overwhelming oriented toward the tourist and thousands of them flock here. It’s very crowded. Dublin has decided that people come here for the pubs. There are so, so

many of them. They overwhelm the city. 

There is music in a lot of them. There is an area of central Dublin called temple bar (not the bar this is the name of the area). It has THE temple bar in it, but it has a lot of other bars in it too. It is an overwhelmingly tourist area. Thousands of people fill the streets in the evenings. 

Is what makes Dublin Irish all the pubs? It feels like you have to search out other Irish culture in Dublin. It doesn’t feel like a lot of it is emphasized. You could easily come here and spend a lot time in pubs and think that’s Dublin.

Dublin is a lot more than that. I’m finding you have to go away from the pubs to find it.