Irish eyes are a'smilin

I haven't had a chance yet to do the second part of the cruise update, because Darrel and I went to Dublin this past weekend.  Seeing that it is a  little bit more recent (and the cruise update is already way past due)...I figured I would tell you all about our adventure in Ireland before I finish talking about the cruise.  It might also have something to do with the fact that I still have a lot of pics to pare down from the cruise, and I'm procrastinating.  LOL!  You can believe any excuse you want :-).

OK...on to Dublin.  On Friday, we took an early morning flight from Heathrow and were in Dublin by 9:30am.  Neither one of us had been there before, and we didn't really know what to expect.  What we found was a very cute, extremely friendly and very walkable city.  Once we got a cab to our hotel, we found that we couldn't check-in to our room because we got in so early.  Seeing that we really didn't have any plans (mainly because we decided to go to Dublin at kinda the last minute...meaning earlier in the week), we just dropped our bags off and start walking aimlessly around the city.  It's funny, but since moving here to London, we tend to walk a whole helluva lot more than we did in the States.  It's a great way to see different cities, and we also get some good exercise as well. 

We ended up walking a good amount of the city on Friday.  One part of town that we walked through is called The Temple Bar, which is a small stretch of about 5 blocks that kinda reminded me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans...meaning there were a lot of small bars and pubs (along with restaurants) that were advertising live music.  Now, we were there around noon, so these bars weren't really open (that only happens IN New Orleans) but I could imagine that it would've been probably a lot like Bourbon Street.  I had thought about trying to get back down there at night, but we never did...I guess we'll have to do that next time. 

 

Further along on our walking tour, we stumbled upon something very interesting.  We had seen a very pretty stone church in the distance...

...so we decided to walk in that direction.  Once we made it up to it, we discovered that it was Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral and it was built in the 1100's.  When we went to enter the church, we saw a posting stating that a tour of the bell tower was going to be happening within the next 10 mins.  Since our timing was impeccable (we probably couldn't have timed it better), we joined the tour and found out that we would be able to ring one of the 19 bells within the bell tower.  If you are wondering, it is quite tiring to ring one of those bells!  It was interesting, and how many people actually can say they were able to ring a church bell?!?!  LOL

On Saturday, we got up and decided to go and see The Book of Kells in the Old Library of Trinity College.  Now, you might be asking yourself what is The Book of Kells...I know I was before going to see them.  So, I thought that I would copy and paste what the website says about them...

The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin) is celebrated for its lavish decoration. The manuscript contains the four Gospels in Latin based on a Vulgate text, written on vellum (prepared calfskin), in a bold and expert version of the script known as "insular majuscule".

The place of origin of the Book of Kells is generally attributed to the scriptorium of the monastery founded around 561 by St Colum Cille on Iona, an island off the west coast of Scotland. In 806, following a Viking raid on the island which left 68 of the community dead, the Columban monks took refuge in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath. It must have been close to the year 800 that the Book of Kells was written, although there is no way of knowing if the book was produced wholly at Iona or at Kells, or partially at each location.

It has been on display in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin from the mid 19th century, and attracts over 500,000 visitors a year. Since 1953 it has been bound in four volumes. Two volumes are on public view, one opened to display a major decorated page, and one to show two pages of script. The volumes are changed at regular intervals.

I figured that would be a better definition of them for you :-) They were very interesting, but you only really got to see 2 pages from them...thankfully, we got there a little early and didn't have to wait in the queue very long.  However, the grounds of Trinity College were quite beautiful and the long hall within the Old Library was very grand (unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture within the Library), but I did take a couple of Trinity College...

Courtyard in front of the Old Library (on the left)...see the queue to get into see The Book of Kells

After Trinity College, we contiuned on our walk and went to the Guinness Storehouse. 

We both expected the Storehouse to be more of a tour of the Brewery and actually see Guinness being brewed, but in reality the Storehouse is really a tourist trap where you walk up 7 floors and get to have a "free" pint of Guiness at the bar at the top of the building.  I put free in quotes because it was a little expensive to get into the Storehouse, and there were a TON of tourists elbowing and pushing to get their "free" pint.  Needless to say...nothing is ever free ;-)  I guess it's something we can say we never have to go to again.  Now, they say that Guinness tastes better in Ireland than anywhere. That might be true...it actually wasn't as bitter nor heavy as either one of us was expecting, but neither Darrel nor I are huge fans of Guinness.  We both like Smithwicks a lot better, which is another Irish Red Ale.

On Sunday, we again walked around the city.  Below I've posted some random pics from our walks...

St. Stevens Green...it is a beautiful park about a block away from our hotel

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Random Church

I loved the ivy growing up the side of this building

After lunch on Sunday, we decided to go to an Irish Pub for a pint of Smithwicks and we stumbled upon a great Ceili (pronounced kaylee) Band.  What this is, is a band that consisted of around 7 musicians (there were a couple of guitars, a banjo, a fiddle and an accordian) who played traditional irish folksongs.  They would alternate instramental songs with singing (each member took turns singing), and even a couple of times a woman from the audience would come up and sing a song with them. 

Very blurry pic of the band...but I thought it would give you an idea of what it was like.

They were really good, and we really enjoyed it...it was a great way to end our trip to Dublin.