Éirinn go Brách!

I bet you thought I was going to forget to share some more pictures and stuff from our Ireland trip (maybe you were hoping I would! LOL). No way!

Our first day we decided to spend in Dublin. I asked the lady who manages the hostel we stayed in for advice on the best way to get into the city and park and she recommended we park in a nearby suburb and take the bus in. The place she told us to park in was perfect, the buses came every 10 minutes and I didn't have to try to brave the Dublin city traffic. The bus let us out right next to the Spire. The Spire is a 400ft. tall tapering steel column, the tallest sculpture in the world. We walked from there to Temple Bar, Dublin's cultural center where we got a tourist map and figured out our plan of attack for the rest of the day. We backtracked to the Ha'penny Bridge (so named because at one time it was the only pedestrian bridge over the river and the toll to cross was one half penny) so I could get a few pictures then headed towards Trinity College so we could see the Book of Kells. We had to wait in a line to get in to the library where the book is kept and it was very crowded. The Book of Kells is a transcription of the Bible's 4 gospels dating from the year 800 and is decorated with all sorts of drawings and designs. After we finished there we walked to Christ Church Cathedral and looked around in there. It has a different feel than other cathedrals we have visited but is very beautiful. Bill and I were fascinated with the floor tiles and we both took several pictures of just the floor! After that we went back across the river to try to visit St. Michan's Church. We had read in a guidebook that there the bodies in the vault are preserved into mummies and Colin just HAD to get a look at that! Unfortunately by the time we got there the church had closed. So we trudged up the hill to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It is the largest cathedral in Ireland and is said to be located on the site where a holy well was that St. Patrick used for baptisms. The church is full of old flags and heraldic banners, many in tatters and barely holding together. Fascinating! As we walked back towards the river was stopped by Dublin Castle, but it had closed already also so we could only take pictures of the outsides of it. We walked through the Temple Bar area before heading to our bus stop and got a feel of the evening pub crowd and enjoyed seeing the colorful pub fronts and hearing the music and laugher and singing from the open doors as we walked by. We were very footsore and tired by the time we got back to our car, and had a quick fish and chips takeout meal before heading to bed.