A Swiss family's Irish holiday: the Stoys' story so far

The Stoy family are visiting Ireland for two weeks. Here they give their impressions of their first days in Dublin

Guido: The flight was normal, just a little delayed.

We couldn’t see much of the city though the cloud.

Maria: We took a bus from the airport and when we got off in the city centre, a lady came to us and asked if we needed directions to our hotel, which we did. So that was nice.

Guido: Our hotel, which we found on the internet, is really more of a bed and breakfast. The room is tiny, but we knew that beforehand. It was more important to us to be near the centre.

ON THE WEATHER

Maria: It is the first time that we have come to the north of Europe for a family holiday. Usually we go to the south where it is warm. I always wanted to go to Ireland and convinced the rest of them to come . . . but I hope the weather gets a little bit better.

Guido: We live in central Switzerland, and the summer has not been too nice to us either. Rain is not too unusual there. Enya: Andrej says this is not really rain.

ON ENYA

Maria: Our daughter is called Enya after the Irish singer. When Guido and I first met, we lived in different cities in Germany, where we are originally from. He made me a copy of Enya’s music, and I used to listen to the music and think about him.

Guido: We really liked the music and also the name, but Andrej (who is the oldest and a boy) wasn’t the right person to call Enya. So when we had a daughter we decided to give her the name.

Maria: We were living in Germany at this time and there you cannot give a child a fantasy name; it must be a real name. They said we can’t find that name in our books, so you can’t have it.

So we had to bring in the CD and they made a copy of the CD and then it was okay. Does Enya the singer live near here?

ON DUBLIN

Guido: I’ve been to England and Dublin is similar to a smaller British town, not like London. I feel more comfortable in this size of a city.

Maria: Since our photograph was in the paper, two people have recognised us in the street. Now I keep wondering if everyone does.

Maria: There are many nice houses with lovely doors and flowers, and every house is different. Not all the same like at home.

Bea: I took photos of flowers and of these two-storey buses. I had never seen those before and I saw five in a row.

Maria: We took the bus that does a full circle of the city (the one with the open top, but we sat in the covered part because of the rain), and saw lots of places that we would like to visit.

We went to a pub to listen to Irish music. We were told that kids were not allowed in the pub in the evening, but when we asked, they said that it was okay if they were with us. When went to get some food, everybody had a Guinness on the table.