Bray is a little seaside village south of Dublin, and I had heard they had an aquarium there (I think maybe the only one in the Dublin area?), so I thought it would be fun to check out. On Friday, I took the train with the boys, and it was about half an hour ride. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and riding the train along the coast provided a gorgeous view of the sparkling water.

When we got off the train, it was just about lunch time, so we looked for somewhere to eat. We found a place called Campo de Fiori Risto Market, which was a little Italian market/restaurant. All the employees are Italian so they greet you with “buongiorno” and “ciao” and the food and atmosphere feel very authentic. We all shared a delicious margarita pizza…the boys devoured it. When they’re both hungry, it’s a total feeding frenzy of trying to cut their food, help it cool down, etc! The restaurant had a high chair, but the tables were tall bar-style with bar stools, so Rafi was awkwardly sitting way below us in his high chair. Oh well — we all enjoyed the meal!

Once we had eaten, we found the aquarium across the street. It was a little disappointing…pretty small and not too much to see, but there were a few nice tanks to look in. Also, they happened to have a little activity with Octonauts, which is a new cartoon show (I think it’s British) that Isaac has discovered since we got here, so he was excited about that. They had an Octonauts scavenger hunt around the aquarium where you had to answer questions about sea-life and then earned a sticker. That was Isaac’s favorite part! I don’t think we will go back to the aquarium, but I’m glad we checked it out.

I would go back to Bray, though, for the gorgeous views and the new fun playground, which we played on for awhile. We walked along the promenade down to the playground and played for awhile. You can continue along the promenade and then up a path and all the way up the hill to Bray Head, where I’m sure there are amazing views over the water. We didn’t have time to do that this time, but maybe we’ll come back another day and do it. The whole day and atmosphere felt very Italian…probably because of the place we had lunch, the sun and people leisurely walking along by the water…it just felt like no one was in a hurry and everyone was on holiday. To stick with the mood, we finished up our afternoon with some gelato before heading back to the train!