Surprising Smithfield

Jono and me headed up to Dublin for a few hours, mainly to see how he managed pain wise – not so good unfortunately, but we did have a lovely time.

We planned it so there was very little walking involved so when we arrived in Dublin we hopped on the LUAS for the short trip to Smithfield. This place has improved so much over the last few years and it’s great to see the regeneration of the area. It’s gone from being quite rundown to being a cool, quirky place to visit.

In place of the closed shops are now funky flea markets and vintage shops. There’s also the generator hostel, The Light House Cinema and the Jameson Whiskey Distillery. I haven’t tried any of those, we did stay in the Maldron in Smithfield once years ago and I wasn’t that impressed but I’m sure it’s improved since then.

Our first stop was the Cat Lounge. I love this place, the cats and kittens are just gorgeous and it’s lovely to be able to relax over coffee and snuggle the felines. It’s the purrfect place to visit.

For lunch we walked around the corner to Token. This place is amazing! I felt like I’d stepped back into the 1980s with all the video game machines that I would have played when I was a teenager. We had a game on Donkey Kong – I thought I was the Gorilla at first so that wasn’t the best start! It was great fun though. I also had a game of Tetris, I love that game.

Jono had spicy chicken strips and I didn’t fancy any of the savoury options so I had the churros and bacon battered Reese’s Pieces which sounded strange but were gorgeous!

As if I didn’t have enough sweet things I stopped at The Rolling Donut on the way back to the station, they have all kinds of donuts – even ones with bacon pieces and vegan ones so worth a visit if you are in Dublin.