Our sad goodbye to London. 😦 we loved our time there so much, it was depressing to say sayonara to the city. We checked out of The Lilac Door and used our amazing public transit skills to figure out the bus alternative when our train station was shut down. We “landed” in Victoria Station for the last time and got ourselves on the milk run trip to Gatwick – oops. Luckily we had time to spare!

The Lilac Door B&B in West Dulwich, London. It was our fabulous home away from home for five days in London and we couldn’t have loved it more. Ranked #3 of all B&Bs in London!

Front of our room at the Lilac Door. Note the windows that let in tons of light and air, and Shane’s waterproofed backpack!

Bathroom and door side of the room – featuring tea-making supplies, our daily water bottles, a peak into the bathroom, my suitcase, and of course, my fabulous husband.

Bathroom with another huge window – it was a little warm at times, but those big windows helped us right out!

A very rainy goodbye to London at the Brixton rail station.

Bye bye rainy London

Entertaining ourselves at Gatwick – Bobby Shane is very patriotic.
RyanAir was better than expected again – we snuck a too big bag on the plane – and after the quick one hour jaunt across the Irish Sea, we were once again in Dublin.
Our hotel for the night was right at the airport (the Radisson Blu) so we needed a bus into city center for our last night – and again, utilizing our masterful skills, made it into Dublin with zero problems. Yay!
Unfortunately, we brought the rain with us from London so we were destined (seemingly) for a pretty crappy evening – but the rain let up and we had a fantastic last night. We went souvenir shopping all over Trinity/Grafton area and settled on Bewleys on Grafton Street for dinner. Rick Steves recommended it and he was right! The setting is stunning – very classic, posh, Italian, swanky. Hard to describe really. Our dinners of pizza and rigatoni were delish! Our drinks of Guinness were tasty and set us up for a fantastic last night. We still played it low key (and low budget) and capped it all with a walk along the River Liffey. We walked the Ha’Penny Bridge and the Bachelors Walk and just reveled in the moment. It was a highlight of the entire two weeks.

Appropriate last Irish meal, right? Margherita pizza and penne with sausage at Bewley’s Grafton Street Cafe’.
We took the bus back to the airport and the shuttle back to the hotel and, like every other night on this trip, crashed! This time, with a great view of the airport!