TLDR – New shoes for Maddex. Parks with mazes near Dublin city center for the rest of us, and Maddex too.
Hole in the shoe and a Pot
While we were getting ready to leave Maddex showed me some duct tape on the front of his shoe. Said he put it there to keep his toe warm. As we were leaving the tape came off and he showed me the bottom of his shoe. We could see his entire big toe sticking out of the shoe bottom. Sigh, we bought these shoes in 2019 a few months ago. First stop of today’s adventure is going to be a Pennys to purchase Maddex a fresh pair of shoes. We rode the LUAS to O’Connell street GPO, crossed the street, entered a Pennys, took the escalator to the basement and picked out an 11 euro pair of shoes for Maddex. The checker tossed Maddex’s old shoes in the rubbish for us.
With shoes and loads of dress ideas for the girls, we walked to Nisbets on Moore street to purchase Michelle a larger soup pot. While she was shopping the kids and I picked out a yellow cutting board, and a few plastic squeeze bottles for ranch dressing and crepe batter. We tossed our stuff in Michelle’s pot, tossed the pot in an Ikea bag strapped to the stroller and started back south back over the river Liffey.
Maze time
Maddex has been asking to do a corn or hay maze for a while now. Michelle found him one in our own town. We walked to Iveagh Garden park in Dublin city center a bit south of Stephens Green. The park is a hidden green area with fountains, a waterfall, open lawns, and perfect for us, it has a small hedge maze in the south-west corner. We’ve walked by and around Iveagh garden a number of times but never knew it was there until Michelle’s maze research had us look it up on a map. Then entrance we took is a small hole in a stone wall at the end of an ally; Not something you would assume leads to a lush green park.
Once you enter the park, you’re instantly thining “wow it’s big and green and gorgeous”. We entered from a street near Harcourt LUAS stop and turned right past the waterfall someone forgot to turn on and went straight away to the hedge maze. The Maze is short hedges, about Roxi height in a circular layout with a stone bird bath looking thing in the middle. The kids ran around having a blast hiding and seeking and making their way in and out of the maze. Michelle and I chatted with another American couple and their small kid for a bit before we took off the explore the rest of the park.
Merrion Square Park then home
Next stop is Merrion Square park to the northeast of where we are. The kids are a bit hungry so we started looking for a chipper to pick up some chips to feed them. No luck on a chipper, but we did find a Tesco. We picked up some drinks and snacks at the Tesco then walked the rest of the way to the park. Merrion park has a nice play area with seating. We sat at a picnic bench where we ate and played. I found Roxi on a toy shivered because she did not want to wear a jacket. she shivered ” I am cold”
I put her back in her jacket, put my dorag on her head, and snuggled her into my shirt for a bit to warm her up. The sun was gone so there was nothing to warm us in the shade. Being a bit cold, we called it and started heading back towards the LUAS for a ride home. – The kids had a happy day. They are ready for the next maze.
Bonus pictures
