Day 3--Dublin

A good night’s sleep is hard to beat.  I was falling asleep writing the blog last night, Gloria would doze off, keep writing in her journal, wake up a few seconds letter to illegible writing!  After the dogs greeted us in bed, a good breakfast was waiting for us when we went downstairs. Des and Sinead’s kitchen is ours.  We shared it with a businessman from Taiwan, nice man.  He had noodles; we had cereal,  bagels, eggs, orange juice and coffee. Below, a picture of their flat, you can see our second floor window.

         

To start the day, Des took us to the Malahide Castle, just a couple of miles from us.  Sinead had taken their car earlier, so we all piled in the back of his work truck, (with the dogs) and away we went.  After, we grabbed a train into Dublin, 2 Euro 80, not bad.  Dublin is a great walking town.  Lots of things to see, with map, Rick Steve’s Ireland book, some internet suggestions in hand, we completed our touring.  What we enjoyed, in no particular order the last two days included, St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Merrion Square, Dublin Art Museum, Trinity College, St. Stephen’s Green, 29 Fitzwilliam Street, and finally the Guinness Storehouse.

A few standouts:  Trinity College was founded in 1592 and has over 16,000 students.  It started admitting women at the beginning of the 1900’s, but now 63% of students are female. It ranks 67th in the world’s university listing. The college is famous for two things, first its main “old” library is 2 meters longer than Cambridge’s, (ranked #2). Take that England.

And, the Book of Kells.  It containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks in the 8th century. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and it is also widely regarded as Ireland’s finest national treasure. 

29 Fitzwilliam Street Museum was also a highlight.  This 4 story flat now houses a museum of life in the late 1700’s-early 1800’s in Dublin.  All the furnishing were authentic and gave one a real view into the life of a wealthy merchant at that time.  Fascinating!  Lest I forget, the food has been great.  Yesterday, our main meal was Irish, good meat and vegies, today it was at the Queen of Tarts, with a well deserved internet reputation. 

Finally, the best rainbow I have ever seen. This was from the top of the Guinness Storehouse over the city of Dublin.  Lens wasn’t wide enough to capture the whole thing.  Stunning!