We arrived at our hotel in the heart of Dublin late in the evening after our afternoon at Newgrange. No time for sightseeing, just a dinner at a nearby pub, enjoying a Guinness and a football game (soccer to we North Americans). But that gave us two full days to explore Dublin and try to understand some of its complicated history.
On our first day, we hit the ground running and walked through St Stephen’s Green to the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology where we got an overview of sights from around the island. We then went to Trinity College to see what is arguably Dublin’s most important attraction, The Book of Kells. (“Arguably”, since while the Guinness Storehouse is definitely the most visited Dublin sight, the Book of Kells has over a thousand years more history.) Just amazing that this huge illuminated manuscript survived over 1200 years of relocations, theft, and civil strife for us to see today. And the Trinity College setting is pretty impressive too.
In the afternoon, we had a tour of Dublin Castle, built over the walls of the original Viking settlement. We snapped a shot of the famous Ha’penny Bridge (see our other post). We enjoyed seeing the pubs and street scene of the Temple Bar area, checked out the statue of Molly Malone, and ended the day at the Chester Beatty Library to view an eclectic collection of Qurans, manuscripts, and prints from around the world.
After an exhausting first day, we took it easy for our last day of the trip (ignoring the travel day needed to get home). We took the tram to the north side on the River Liffey, where we walked past the General Post Office, the headquarters of the leaders of the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. Our first stop was the replica of the famine ship Jeanie Johnston where we had a very enthusiastic and informative tour. And by then we were pretty much done with historical sights and headed for the Jameson Distillery Bow St. Dublin Tour. While Jameson has moved their distilling operation to Midleton, they still do fun tours and tastings at their original home in Dublin.
A nice dinner wrapped up our “England and Ireland” trip and the next day we spent the entire day in buses, planes, and airport lounges to get back to Vancouver.
Images of Dublin on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720317155834
