Our First City Break with Baby Sofia

At the beginning of December, we have gathered the courage to go on our first city break with baby Sofia, 1 year and 2 months at that moment 🙂

We had travelled before to the sea with her, to Maldives and Greece, but we have never been on a city break where we usually put in a lot of miles by footwork and we did not know how well the baby would adjust to the schedule.

We chose Dublin, this is a city that I have wanted to see for a long time and somehow we always postponed it. It has the advantage that most things of interest are in the city centre and it is easy to walk from one touristic objective to the other.

We had a morning, 4 hour flight from our city. The baby was very curious and happy during the first flight and she even slept for one hour, so that went great. We took a bus from the airport to the city centre and then we walked for about ten minutes to our hotel.

It was already evening when we went out for a stroll and it was beautiful. In Dublin the Christmas lights and trees were already out so we walked on O’Connell street and bridge towards Temple Bar district. I liked the atmosphere there. We took some pictures with the Temple bar but we did not go in because the music was too loud for the baby. We had dinner at a nearby diner and of course, a pint of Guinness 🙂

The second day, we started from Trinity College, where the baby was very happy to play in the gardens, then we walked on Grafton street, did a bit of shopping, and took a walk in St Stephen’s Green. I loved it there, the tranquillity, the beauty of it, the lake, the colours of the trees, it was amazing. Sofia got to feed some pigeons, she liked it a lot :)

Then, we walked towards Saint Patrick’s cathedral. We had coffee in the park nearby, on a terrace, while Sofia slept in her stroller. Usually, in our country it’s too cold to sit outside at a terrace during this time of the year, so it was amazing. Obviously, the weather was amazing, no rain, little wind, sometimes sunny and friendly temperatures. So we lucked out on that one 🙂

After the cathedral, we went to Dublin castle, but it was undergoing some renovations and we did not go in. It was already evening by then so we walked towards a restaurant that a friend had recommended and we had an amazing meal.

The third day, it was beach day :) We went to O'Connell station and took the train to Dalkey. It was Sofia’s first time on the train and she enjoyed it. From Dalkey, since the weather was nice, we decided to walk towards Killiney beach — the scenery was amazing, it reminded me of Nice or Capri. We took some photos at Sorrento point, where you can see the entire beach towards Killiney and then we walked until we arrived at the beach. We had to climb some stairs and it was a bit of a challenge with a stroller, but teamwork makes wonders 🙂

Killiney beach is lovely, very tranquil and gorgeous; we took a long walk there, took a looooot of pictures, Sofia was free to run on the beach, we loved it there. I did not like that there was not even a terrace or a small shop where you could buy a bottle of water but we made do.

We took the train from Killiney back to Dublin, but we stopped in Dun Laoghaire, drank hot chocolate and took a long walk on the pier; it was really beautiful and relaxing. Back in Dublin, we had dinner at a steakhouse on O'Connell street.

The fourth day, it was time to go home :) Our plane was scheduled at noon, so directly after breakfast we headed to the airport. The flight was more challenging, Sofia was tired and could not sleep so she cried a bit.

Overall, we managed to visit most of the things that we wanted. I had wished to visit the Little Museum of Dublin but I gave that up since it only had guided tours with groups and it would have been challenging with Sofia to attend it. We decided to skip the Guinness storehouse since we decided it would not be suitable to visit with a baby.

I liked Dublin very much, it was way more upscale and cosmopolitan than I had read about, it was a beautiful surprise. I most enjoyed Killiney beach, it was way more beautiful than I had imagined. Sofia was mostly in her stroller and she liked it, she admired the streets, people, locations.

Overall, it was a very active, relaxing and successful vacation and we will repeat another city break soon.