Bonanza despite the economic slowdown in the Miracle, booming consumption and tourists flood the streets of the capital of the Emerald Isle, an ideal city to discover on foot and with U2 playing on the headphones . DUBLIN (Javier Deus, for Aragon Liberal) .- When imagined Dublin, wanted it to be so. From the airport to board the shuttle to the city, the Irish Green is in charge of welcoming. And as if life were a postcard, little by little, new small red-brick houses, until after 25 minutes the rustic grasslands are transformed into the now energetic city that summarizes the newspaper articles.
The bus moves, the right, the English style, on the historic O'Connell Street, the heart of Dublin. Right mix of modernity and lastly, in the busy boulevard coexist in harmony, for example, the century-old Post Office and the futuristic Dublin Spire, a giant steel structure, needle-shaped, 122 meters high, which is a symbol of the new Ireland.
O Connell Every hour is filled with Dubliners and tourists who come and go carrying shopping bags and, at first glance, there is no sign of economic slowdown, are forecast to only 2.6 percent growth for this year, the lowest rate in two decades. Perhaps Ireland is growing less, but advanced enough to move from backyard forgotten Celtic Tiger of Europe Example for any third world country wanting to climb the social ladder planet.
The Irish financial miracle started in 1990 and was based on a real estate boom and the installation of technology companies. In this way managed to leave behind an economy based on agriculture. An agrarian past to forget that had its darkest chapter in the "great potato famine" of 1840, which killed half the population.
seems the story of another country, if you look at the current macroeconomic record, with an average annual growth of 7.2 percent in the last decade, the second highest per capita income in Europe, after Norway and well above the UK, or the brand new fifth place in the Human Development Index of United Nations Program.
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All these numbers translate into street with a streetcar system futuristic design, combined with classic double-decker buses, London style, but yellow, dozens of trendy restaurants, boutique hotels, and hundreds of luxury cars in rush hour, in addition to a mass of cars as irritating as any big business.
All these numbers translate into street with a streetcar system futuristic design, combined with classic double-decker buses, London style, but yellow, dozens of trendy restaurants, boutique hotels, and hundreds of luxury cars in rush hour, in addition to a mass of cars as irritating as any big business.
Considering the traffic, the price of taxis, the bus system is incomprehensible and, above all, the small size city, it is clear that walking is the best way to discover Dublin.
After advancing trade by five blocks of O Connell Street, the Celtic version of the Champs-Elysées, came to the banks of the Liffey, the river that bisects the city and who has marked his fate since the Vikings came to these lands.
The ride is quiet and illustrative Dublin sleep: slow stride 500 meters from the waters of the Liffey, surrounded by old buildings that blend in peace with futuristic structures of glass and metal.
Conscious of not doing what I want, I work up the patience to enter by Grafton Street, a pedestrian street could be in any world capital, with many people, Starbucks, McDonald s, musicians and, of course, human statues.
The flood of tourists reminds me a tip I read in a British newspaper: If you two or three days in Dublin, avoid weekends, save lots of money on hotel and spend less time looking for a table in restaurants.
With a sense of accomplishment, the next morning I decide to get lost without a map of Dublin. And, as if it were a debt, I look at my iPod U2 and I get to walk with the band that largely created the myth of Dublin who lives in my head.
While unhurried stroll towards the bay, along the Grand Canal, see swans and trees.
In the southeast of the city step by Pembroke Road, a broad avenue in a wealthy area, with corners that are highlighted by small restaurants, delis and cafes can charge up to 4 euros for a coffee.
Prices are, of course, an aspect of reality that prevails over the chimera of Dublin. However, ratification of the singular kindness that many warned me before leaving my head out of the calculator.
Before you know it would go to Dublin, a friend told me a story that was part of my fantasy of the city. A year ago he had been assaulted near Brussels and had come to Dublin almost with nothing. That was his first night he met two guys, listening to a street singer. They told them about his bad luck.
"One begins to smoke, I ask for a cigarette, and he gives me his pack," he writes now I ask you remember the story. After a while, the other tells me to show my hand and put 10 euros. I say no, thank you, and he responds: If you're okay, I'm fine. " If does not believe my friend or me, I invite you to conduct the following experiment: Stand on any corner of Dublin, open a map and see that within seconds someone will come to ask for help. Word is true.
There is always someone who appreciates these facts: Dublin comes from the Gaelic Dubh, black, and Linn, Lake. Thus, the black lake, "deserves a few paragraphs apart when talking about their beautiful parks.
At least there are five gardens hitches. And of those, two indispensable: the most important may be Iveagh Gardens, otherwise known of him is almost impossible to reach. In my case, Luckily a note read before the New York Times calling him The Secret Garden. Otherwise, it would last long. Iveagh Gardens is hidden behind buildings, right next to the National Concert Hall.
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neighbors come to read the newspaper, mothers engaged in teaching their children walk to school and football fans who play without disturbing anyone, surrounded by old statues beheaded by years. Low traffic noise to a minimum and the soundtrack of the park is a mixture of water from the pools and sheets blowing in the wind. Sounds like new age, but it is not.
Iveagh street vendors there, I think to remember my time in the meadows, nor are there in St. Stephen s Green, the most classic and popular park in Dublin.
It's Monday, 4 pm, it's cold, but there are no clouds and St. Stephen's Green is filled with people who have come to take some warm sunshine. The banks involved older, young people are lying on the grass, the children run and tourists will take pictures.
should not be a sociologist to guess that the Dubliners are fans of their gardens and who knows if that passion will be used to interpret this last statistic note for which I have no explanation, according to a study, the Irish are Europeans who consume less culture, despite its economic progress.
In pubs, beer, football and whiskeys.
Write, write ... Maybe it's time to stop with these ramblings and visit an authentic Irish pub. They say there are about 1000 in Dublin, many with Irish traditional music, nice question just a few minutes. Especially in the Temple Bar area, with many street musicians, fights on the weekends and local diehard in attracting tourists and charge 10 euros for a beer.
So I get to Hughes Bar, 19 Chancery Street. Here the customers will come together to greet the bartender, ask for a Guinness and take the remote control to tune to a football match. Hopefully, the bartender tells me, here one may encounter with musicians like Paul Doyle and Jerry Holland, who often encouraged to play for the respectable. Maybe the environment is too local and not unusual to feel a bit alien at Hughes, Dublin a place so that I believe can only be enjoyed by those born in the city.
When all is said and done, you're a tourist, but do not want. The solution is meeting in Wexford Street, where the Solas, an ultra modern bar design, and the Village Venue, which presents local musicians such as Sinead O'Connor and Morrissey, and where I choose to comply with the last ritual drink Irish whiskey .
The classic would order a Jameson, versus the smoky taste of Bushmills, the most prestigious Irish whiskey, as one critics. And win the latter.
Writers first, the rest later.
In a corner of St. Stephen s Green, under the statue reads: Stephen s Crossing That is my green, and lower James Joyce, a name that inevitably leads to the literary Dublin. Born and lived here many important Anglo-Saxon writers. Other: Joyce, Oscar Wilde, WB Yeats, Bernard Shaw and Jonathan Swift.
The Dublin Writers Museum, 18 Parnell Square, the guide ensures that Ireland's literary idols are not the players or singers. He says that until there is a saying: "The writers first, everything else later."
The most popular, of course, is James Joyce. So much so that is a museum just for him, the James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great Georges Street. Much of its merits for that honor in his acclaimed estn Ulysses, who narrates the June 16, 1904 in the life of Leopold Bloom, a day that is remembered every year with one of the biggest parties, the Bloom s Day.
That day there are over 1000 people to emulate the journey of the protagonist of Ulysses. "Many leave pig kidneys breakfast and then walk up to Joyce's house, at number 7 Eccles Street," he says. The rest of the year, goes the warning, "Joyce fans can visit the famous Davy Byrne, 21 Duke Street, where Leopold Bloom ate a gorgonzola sandwich and drank a glass of Burgundy. "
