Last Full Day in Ireland

 It is with mixed feelings that this is our last day in Ireland.  We’ve really enjoyed our time here, but we’re also ready to go home.

Today was really the first day we had rain.  We had one other day of rain, but we were driving from the north to the south, so it didn’t really affect us.  Now we know what it’s like to have rain in Ireland!  But that didn’t stop us.  We came prepared with rain jackets and Gerard and I brought our umbrellas, so we were all good.

After going out for an Irish breakfast, we thought we would visit Trinity College and the Book of Kells.  A couple of shots from inside the college grounds.


There was a bit of a line-up for the Book of Kells though, and you had to book tickets ahead, so Sue & Bryan decided to stay and do that while the rest of us moved on.

We thought we’d visit Dublinia, a museum that’s dedicated to the history of Dublin and Dubliners, starting with the Vikings, of course.  There was no city here before the Vikings.

I asked Gerard who she was.  He said he doesn’t know, but she has a toothache.


And a couple of other scenes from around the museum.  This one is self-explanatory.


Uh, I guess this one is self-explanatory too.  It was actually rather humorous as sound went with it!


We went back to our place while John, Judy & Darlene went to Grafton Street to do some shopping.  

We had a fun evening booked for our last night here.  We went to “Celtic Nights” at the Arlington Hotel for dinner and a show.

We thought our table # was special since Judy and I are the same as this number.  And the wax dripped on a bottle brought back memories of our youth as well.


Anyway, we enjoyed the music and dancing.



We caught taxis back to our place and called it a night.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Belfast

Image
Today we headed to Belfast.  We had trepidation at first after having heard about all “The Troubles” in Ireland in the 60s, 70s and 80s.  So first we headed to the Titanic Experience museum.  The place is huge. It goes through the early 1800s of Belfast and into shipbuilding as huge employer.  Then into the engineering and building of the Titanic.  Of course next was the launch of Titanic, and the disaster, then the aftermath.  So quite an interesting exhibition. We then decided to catch a cab into the middle of Belfast as we didn’t really want to drive there.  We were able to leave our cars in the underground parking garage while a cabbie took us to town.  He was terrific and after telling him our destination, we asked him where one of the best pubs would be.  He took us to The Crown, one of the oldest in Belfast.  It was beautiful!  Floor to ceiling. It even had these little spots called a “snug” where upper class ladies came to d...
Read more

North Northern Ireland

Image
Today consisted of a visit to the Giant’s Causeway, the City of Londonderry, and the Town of Portrush. The Giant’s Causeway is a World Heritage Site established in 1986.  It really is quite fascinating and occurs just in this spot on the northern coast.  Here are a couple of pictures of what it looks like up close.  You can check it out on Wikipedia, but essentially it is a geological formation.  And the Irish have a legend that goes with it that involves Finn McCool. By the time we left there it was after noon, so we decided to go to Londonderry for lunch.  It was about an hour away, but hey, who cares?  We finally managed to find a place to park the cars, and found a nice little pub.   Here we are out front after we were satisfied. Londonderry is a an old walled city that sits on the River Foyle.  Here’s a bridge that is part of the old wall. That guy underneath was playing a Handpan…a fairly new instrument from Switzerland.  Sounded beauti...
Read more

Cashel and Blarney

Image
 Today was a bit of a castle day.  First we visited the Rock of Cashel.  This castle, built on a large limestone outcropping (the rock), was the home of Irish kings for centuries.  They controlled the whole southeast from Limerick, all through the south and all the surrounding area. We did a tour of the place which took about 45 minutes.  He explained the various buildings in the castle and some of the stories from the past.  Quite interesting.  In fact, St. Patrick was here as the castle was given to the archbishop of the time between warring kings.  This is St. Patrick’s well which is blocked off so no one can touch it. This is the cathedral inside…and the tower outside. And a beautiful view of the surrounding countryside. And another tourist kindly took our photo. When we were done here, we went to nearby Cahir for lunch.  We thought we would get out of the town of Cashel as it was pretty busy.  We walked by here and Gerard said he ha...
Read more