Remembering that we were here to enrich our minds along with our bodies, we spent a fair amount of time touring around Dublin. All structured of course, but hitting several interesting sites. After our continental breakfast in the hotel, we manned up the coach (not a bus, the coach), and began a tour of the city. The rain was between light to non-existent to heavy downpours. In fact we altered our planned itinerary to keep us out of the rain as much as possible.
We did “out the window” stuff, seeing the Victorian houses, St. Stephans Green, a blurry view of a statue of Oscar Wilde, and our first intended stop of Trinity College was replaced by a visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As you all know St. Patrick is much revered in (the Republic of) Ireland, and despite the folklore of driving the snakes from Ireland, the real reason is that he converted the Gaelic warlords to a form of Christianity, sort of Irish Catholic rather than Romish version. (all you history buffs, remember that I’m a poor engineer wading through this stuff). Anyway after spending many hours in our “historic Chapel of 1667”, we look at something that was begun in 1250, a mere 4 centuries earlier. Kind of puts things in perspective..our plain chapel or
Plain windows or
Rough plain effigies or
Kind of humbling..
After that, we did return to Trinity College, to not only tour the grounds, but also to see the Book of Kells. Well, it turns out that our visit coincided with
“Fresher’s Week”, wherein the incoming crowd of Freshmen are wooed by various clubs and organizations..
It was crawling with the intellectual elite admitted to this year’s first year class. We then did get to see the Book of Kells, an amazing document with world reknown illustrations
(no pictures allowed)
From around the 800’s. Just a mere lightweight.. They also have some other historic manuscripts with writing so small you wonder how those Monks read it with no light and glasses..
We concluded our day with a visit to the Guinness Brewery,
and here we’re walking the line between culture and cuisine, but it was sort of a typical tour, culminating in a visit to the gift shop and then a free tasting. Their tasting room is atop the brewery and affords a great view of the city.
The proper way (it was pointed out) was to pour about two thirds full down the side of the glass, and then let it set for two (and they were strict) minutes before topping it off and handing it to you. Well, that’s good for the beer, but it makes for longish lines of thirsty tourists..
That concluded the cultural part of the day for Dublin, and since it’s so long we’ll wait for another edition to talk about the food…
Oh, one other thing. There was a “street Fair” outside our hotel to promote bicycling (energy savings).
Several bands, and several on-lookers..
So ended our first day of Dublin, and that evening started our Cuisine adventures…
when we were
DFD
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