Yesterday we thought we would check out the Dublin Zoo, which is inside a huge park called Phoenix Park all the way on the west side of Dublin. The park is the largest enclosed park in Europe and, in addition to regular park features like large grassy areas, playgrounds, and sports fields, it also contains the residence for the president of Ireland, the residence for the American ambassador, and several large monuments. The park is so big that in 1979, over a million people gathered there to hear Pope John Paul II speak! Needless to say, we barely scratched the surface of seeing the enormous park, and basically just focused this visit on the zoo.

The zoo in Dublin is actually the oldest in Europe and a cool tidbit we learned is that the lion, Slats, who roars at the beginning of MGM movies was born and lived at the Dublin zoo in 1919. Who knew?!

It took us awhile to get to the zoo. First we stopped for brunch/lunch at a place called Kilkenny. We decided to get the (sort of) traditional Irish breakfast, minus the meat. Scrambled eggs, potato, tomatoes, mushrooms, soda bread, and coffee…all for only 6 euro! I’ve actually been impressed with the array of vegetarian options around Dublin. Not eating beef or pork, I was worried I would have limited food options in some places, but it hasn’t been a problem at all so far. Yes, there’s a lot of meat, but I’m always finding there are veg options too! Yay!

Kilkenny is actually a cafe in the upstairs part of a nice store of the same name that sells beautiful Irish products (like Waterford crystal, lots of woolen clothes, pottery, and other cool things). I definitely want to go back there to shop at some point , but for now we just got lunch. I did see a print with a Mark Twain quote that kind of sums up this adventure we are on so I took a picture of it (see below). While we ate, Jeff and Isaac read Isaac’s new favorite Richard Scarry book.

We also didn’t realize before we got to the store/restaurant, but it’s right across the street from Trinity College, so we walked over there afterwards. We didn’t go in any buildings this time (like the library or to see the famous Book of Kells), but we will go back sometime for those. This time , just walked around the courtyards.

Finally, after lunch and Trinity, we were ready to head over to the zoo, but it took a little while to figure out how to get there via bus or tram. We ended up taking the tram (called the Luas) there and a bus home later. Isaac was very eager to get to the park and find a playground, but we couldn’t find one at first because it’s such a large park! He was getting grumpy and antsy, but luckily inside the zoo, there are actually several playgrounds! Phew!

Once in the zoo, we saw lions, tigers, orangutans, and the coolest were the giraffe, zebras, and ostriches on the African savana exhibit. The way it’s set up there, you are so close to those animals so we got really good views. There was a baby zebra who was just born, and we also saw baby elephants, which were so cute. But the highlight for Isaac were the zoo playgrounds. He has been getting so much more adventurous with climbing and doing slides and once he starts, he can’t stop! I’m trying to decide whether we will get a zoo membership or not. At home we have one, but we live super close to the zoo at home. Here it seems it might be more of a once in awhile thing since it’s not so close to where we will be living. So…we will see. But it was definitely a fun outing for a Saturday afternoon! And we will have to go back to Phoenix park too at some point and find the playgrounds there, as well as the herds of wild deer that live in the park and can be spotted.