May 27
It's a 30 minute free shuttle ride into mid city, then we're off again on our own walking/hopping tour. We have goals, of course: Trinity College & the Book of Kells, Dublin Castle, cathedrals, Temple Bar & the Temple Bar district,where we plan to do more comparative research on Irish Coffee.
Christ Church Cathedral is big and beautiful with an 18 degree outward leaning north wall. It has been that way since 1562 (It's so hard to get carpenters to come in & repair another carpenter's faulty work). This is Dublin's oldest building (c.1030) – at least that's the word on the street. Cee & I, however, are almost sure that there was a pub before there was a cathedral. The crypt below is interesting but a strange place to host food service, what with the dead lying around....even a mummified cat chasing a mummified rat - the pair found in one of the pipes of the old organ.
We decide to pass on the food & grab lunch elsewhere.
Dublin Castle has the most beautiful, small chapel. The carvings are beautiful. We read that Bram Stoker worked in Dublin Castle as a civil servant in 1870 and thus got his ideas for his best seller, Dracula.
“The Spire” aka “monument of light” represents a large knitting needle in honor of sweaters & other knit articles from the Aran Islands. 15 cm @ the tip & 120 m high on main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street. & across from Georgian era General Post Office.
Trinity College & Book of Kells. TC is oldest University in Ireland. Founded in 1592 by Q Elizabeth I. The 9th century “illuminated four gospels” known as the Book of Kells and the Long Hall housing 200,000 old books are worth the wait in que.
Temple Bar: the area is very fun with narrow cobbled streets, lots of brightly painted pubs and restaurants, street artists, and excitement. It is geared to the 20-something singles. We stopped at Temple Bar for research – yes, an Irish Coffee & “ploughman's special” for lunch. Both were forgettable, neither would make our “must do” list. The Temple Bar itself, however, should not be missed and you must sit down with a pint of something to really enjoy it & let the atmosphere soak in. The waiter was generous with souvenirs including postcards and match books.
By the way, if you're looking for Neil Diamond, he's performing in Dublin. I guess he's there even if you're not looking for him & with any luck, they'll keep him.
By afternoon, the Dublin we had so enjoyed in the morning was just another busy, dirty, sooty, smelly city and it was time to take the shuttle back to the ship through rush-hour traffic on a Friday afternoon.
Caveat: plan on enjoying Dublin in the morning & early afternoon.
Ha :D I can't say the grittier, afternoon Dublin bothered me much -- I'd bet any city that mixes whiskey in its morning coffee would get rough around the edges by four or five p.m. For me, Dublin felt like a very big college city: young people, a big bar scene, it didn’t ‘wake up’ until the afternoon, and most people seemed quick with a smile and a conversation starter.
ReplyDeleteBut we would be remiss if, in addition to hailing Irish friendliness and Dublin’s must-see sights, we didn’t also mention the very (and perhaps with reason) overlooked Natural History Museum, which Gigi and I caught just before leaving for the ship. The museum is one, long, maybe-baroque building tucked in a corner of the same city block as the National Library. Its two exhibition-containing stories are divided by region: the lower floor displays local flora and fauna, and the upper floor more exotic specimens. Since we were running low on time, we only perused the lower deck – which I recommend. Natural History museums always fascinate, and I’ve spent hours in various ones across the US, but never have I had a museum spark the little Indiana Jones in me. From two giant, black-painted skeletons of extinct Irish Red Deer, to overstuffed (literally) bird-of-prey displays, to shelves and cabinets of water slugs, eels, fish, rodents, waterfowl, etc. this museum feels like someone’s extensive personal collection of nature. Walking through the thousands of specimens fit into this one hall (maybe 200’ long), I could only imagine being the collector: being the Indiana, being the scientist, being the person consumed by the structure and function of this butterfly, or that sunfish, or this water-spider…
To be fair to any future visitor, other museums will have more money, more collections, more posted information, more space, and more artistry in the design – but there’s just heart in this one. You’ll know it from the smiling, helpful gentleman behind the information desk (who will graciously spot you some postage stamps if you didn’t know the post office closed at 3pm), to the quick gift-shop with a few t-shirts, postcards, and gummie worms, to the barely visible white walls bedecked in dead remains. I loved it.