Maritime Festival & Summer Market

The Dublin Dockland Development Authority has organised a Maritime Festival cum summer market to mark the beginning of summer season earlier this month. It's probably one of the largest outdoor market in Dublin with over 100 stalls and majestic tall ships docking the quays of River Liffey.


Ever since the Oktoberfest Festival in Dublin last year, I've been 'addicted' to visiting European markets. I was looking forward to it. :)

We visited the market on a lovely Saturday afternoon with excellent summer weather.


A number of beautiful tall ships sailed from all over the world for the festival and the ships were opened for visit.


Lord Nelson was one of the more popular ships docked. How wonderful if I could own a small yacht someday and set out to the sea for fishing and diving trips or even just for a lazy Sunday lying under the sun and enjoy a bottle of wine! ;)


Dublin has attracted talents from all over the world during the Celtic Tiger economic boom and has since been a melting pot of diverse cultures. The summer market saw a variety of cuisines from different countries and above was the Spanish paella.


We had some paelle during our trip to Spain and it's really delicious.




The French crepes! :)


Sausage smacked on her face! Hehe!


And the German sausages - my favourite! ;)


I actually like it without the bread! Well, the bread was paid for and I've been taught not to waste food since young. :)


The French churros!




The Spanish flamingo dance! Siew Leng has been an avid enthusiast of flamingo dance and she was rather excited. No. She couldn't dance. ;p It's just that she loves to see Flamingo performances.


We missed it during our visit to Spain. We should have seen it. Not too bad we still had a chance to see it in Dublin. ;)




Reindeers are such a lovely animal especially in various Christmas stories. I couldn't imagine they are being slaugthered for their meats and hides. €85 - not cheap though. :)


Sweaters in reindeer theme.


The Dutch souvenirs stall - the traditional shoe and windmill replicas.


This stall seemed to be selling some sorts of handicrafts from Indochinese peninsula. I think I saw similar bags at our very own pasar malam in Malaysia. ;p


Fresh olives, are widely used in Mediterranean cuisines.


And cheeses!


The Italian salami! Yummy! Salami is cured sausage, fermented and air-dried.


The Italian nougats. For a moment, I thought these were from Australia.


Lebanese roast pork with bread. This smelt really good. I was thinking to buy this on our way back and unfortunately it was closed by then. Aah!


This ship sailed from France and carried barrels of French wines along. Visitors were allowed to dock the ship and join the wine tasting sessions, at a cost of course. :)








After strolling through the tall ships and stalls, we headed to the nearby Harboutmaster Pub for a few pints. I ordered my favourite German pilsner, Paulaner. :)

There he was, my housemate, Ta Wei, who brought us to this pub! :)