Adventures in Dublin: Running Red Lights in a Dublin Horse-Drawn Carriage
I’ve always loved horse and carriage rides since I was little. One of my favorite splurges when visiting a historic city is to take a tour via carriage. Usually I wait til I have several other people in my party to bring the price down, but when I exited the Guinness Storehouse and saw the line of available carriages I was tempted.
The rain had stopped though the wind was gusting. The Guinness factory is located at the far end of the downtown area over half an hour’s walk from my next stop. Every minute counted in cramming in as many sites as possible before they closed at 5PM. I came up with all kinds of justifications for why I should splurge and spend the €20 to go to Trinity College, not the least of which was then I could pose with the horse.
Unfortunately the wind made it a not-as-pretty picture…
Anyway, I splurged. The driver, after enquiring several times as to where the rest of my party was, invited me to sit up front with him since it was just me. (His fellow coachmen apparently got a big kick out of this.)
This was rather ideal. It was more exposed to the wind but I had a better view and could get more pictures of Dublin sites with horse ears at the bottom. Everything was great for the first couple of blocks when we were taking back streets. Once we came out by Christchurch Cathedral, it got a bit frightening.
We were right in the middle of Dublin weekend traffic with cars and trucks on each side. And then I realized the horse didn’t stop for red lights! Ack! My driver seemed unconcerned, keeping up a running commentary on the historical sites as we passed them.
I did make it safely to my destination, in only 15 minutes, which enabled me to catch a much earlier tour of Trinity College. And in retrospect the traffic and traffic lights made it all the more thrilling, but only afterwards.
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