Tourists in our own town

ONE of my favourite ways of seeing a foreign city is from the top deck of a tour bus.

It gives you a good, overall perspective of a city you may not have visited before and you get to take in all the major sights without too much leg work.

And usually you have the freedom to get on and off as you please so you can explore areas of particular interest in better detail as they come along.

I’ve often watched similar bus tours traverse Dublin’s streets and thought it would be interesting to see my own city through a tourist’s eyes.

But even though I have lived here for many years I never made the effort to actually do the tour until Dublin Bus kindly offered me the opportunity.

So, with kids in tow we set off on a recent Sunday to spend the day among some of the visitors to our great city and enjoyed what was a pleasurable and eye-opening experience.

Picking up the tour at Merrion Square the bus passed by the houses of the Oireachtas and the Taoiseach’s offices before turning right onto St Stephen’s Green.

It was fascinating to see familiar streets transformed through the stories and anecdotes told by the Fáilte Ireland approved driver as we trundled along.

Soon we were passing by St Patrick’s Cathedral where the driver recounted the story of one of Dublin’s greatest writers.

Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, was Dean of the cathedral until he died in October 1745.

As familiar as I am with Swift’s literary classic I had never heard the story of its creator’s unfortunate and sad end.

In 1738, he began to show signs of illness. And, as our driver informed us, he feared he was going mad and even wrote about it.

It has even been suggested that the final chapters of Gulliver’s Travels are proof of Swift’s approaching insanity.

The next stop on the tour was the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin’s most popular tourist attraction.

This proved to be a particularly popular stop off point for our fellow passengers who embarked with much anticipation as we were bamboozled by facts from our guide.

Some of them are familiar; the Black Stuff is brewed in more than 150 countries for example but did you know that although the Irish love a pint of plain, more than 40 per cent of the 10 million glasses sold every day are actually drunk in Africa?

We left the majority of our passengers here as the bus refilled with a new entourage and then it was off to the squatting mass of Kilmainham Gaol, another big hitter on the trail before we got off in the Phoenix Park for a quick run up to the Wellington Monument.

After scrambling around this impressive 65-metre obelisk we didn’t have long to wait before another bus came along and we could rejoin the tour.

As we left the park behind the guide delighted in pointing out that Wellington, who was born in Dublin, was none too proud of his roots. The Duke would often remark: ‘Just because one is born in a stable doesn’t mean one is a horse!

After a quick spin down the quays we were soon touring the transformed Smithfield that looked particularly impressive from the angle of our open top bus before we turned onto O’Connell Street.

Judging from the excited remarks and shuffling as our fellow tourists scrambled to get a shot of the GPO this was another highlight for our guests.

The bespattered statue of Jim Larkin raised a few laughs as the driver pointed out the cheeky seagulls that show little or no respect for the renowned leader of the Lockout whose actions were only recently celebrated on the city’s main thoroughfare.

Then it was a quick turn around by way of the Garden of Remembrance and back along O’Connell Street and we were back on the Southside.

Soon we were back at our jumping off point an entertaining hour and a half later.