A Weekend in Kilkenny, Ireland ⋆ The Alya Experience

This past weekend a couple of friends and I decided to take a trip down to Kilkenny from Dublin. We booked our train tickets for the Irish Rail, and chose a hostel that was centrally located. The train ride from Dublin was only about and hour and a half, and we left early Saturday morning so we would have the day to explore.

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From the train station, we had about a 25 minute walk to our hostel. Luckily for us, the weather was beautiful on Saturday. Once we dropped our belongings off, we made our way to the first stop of the day, Kilkenny Castle.

Kilkenny Castle

(Above: pre-restoration photos)

The people responsible for the restoration of the castle found an old piece of the yellow textile seen on the wall when a piece of furniture was moved, and managed to have an identical replica of the same material recreated for this room. So what you are seeing present day is what you would have seen in the original room.

After leaving the castle, we stopped for a quick bite to eat, then proceeded to make our way over to the Smithwick’s (pronounced Smiddick) Brewery for a tasting tour.

Smithwick’s Experience

For the tour, we had the option of doing the general tasting which includes 1 beer for €16, or the beer flight for €19, so naturally we chose the beer flight.

Afterwards we made our way back through town to our hostel to get ready for the evening. Kilkenny is known for having a fun nightlife scene, and we had been given a couple different recommendations. We ended up going to a bar/club called Left Bank, which has a nightclub-like vibe upstairs and more of a bar/pub feel on the ground floor. The bar opened in 2008, and is actually a renovated Bank Of Ireland Branch. If you are into the nightlife scene, I definitely recommend checking this spot out. It’s free unlike some of the other bars, and it is massive.