Day 26: In Dublin’s fair city

One of the advantages of the Holiday Inn Express is that breakfast is included and so we had a pleasant light breakfast before heading out to tackle Dublin. It looked very different in the daylight, although the threat of rain was still looming. The reception at  the hotel pointed us in the direction of buying a Leap Card, a 24 hour tourist type equivalent of our Opal Card that allowed travel by bus, tram and rail.  We were keen to see the Book of Kells  exhibit at Trinity and the queue was very long. so, we ordered timed tickets for this afternoon online and went off in search of cathedrals. It is interesting, there are two Church of Ireland Cathedrals in Dublin, both on the map, both prominent, and Christ Church has interesting ruins from the time of the dissolution. it also had a spectacular flat labyrinth in the forecourt build of different shades of grey stone. What really struck me was that the Catholic cathedral in this supposedly Catholic country did not even make the tourist map! 

After Christ Church we went in search of Old Dublin town and the Temple Bar area. We had been led to believe that this was something akin to the Rocks in Sydney or the Shambles in York, but really it was very disappointing. Its only real draw card is pubs and lots of them with little else, and it is a bit seedy in its look. There was some entertainment provided by a delivery truck the size of a small elephant trying to do a 97 point right hand turn in  the laneway, but that was about the score of it. 

Lunch stop was soup at a classy pub dining room where I had Guinness bread with my soup, as close as I am going to get to Guinness while we are here! A spot of shopping and then off to the Book of Kells and the Long Room exhibit. We had seen the Book of Kells when it came to Canberra many years ago, and I haven to say I was a bit disappointed with only having the one page on display “@ home”. But the Long Room was so totally worth it. Displaying books back to the mid 15 hundreds and displaying the busts of (male) philosophers and literary geniuses, it is a fabulous and imposing collection. There was also one of the few surviving copies of the 1916 uprising Declaration. That was interesting. Afternoon tea saw us stop at Butler’s Chocolate store, on the street oppostie Trinity College for Hot chocolate . I know about Butlers because Iris has brought gifts from Ireland in the past, but the hot chocolate... yum yum. We sat on the bench outside and did some people watching while we enjoyed our drink but on the way to the tram,  down came the rain! Torrential! Soaking!

One of the locals we met at Butlers advised us to go up to the 1916 exhibit at the Post Office, which was actually the base for the rebels in the 1916 Easter Week uprising. It was a part of history that we knew little about although we well understand its consequences and outcome in a free Ireland. It was a first class exhibit and we learned a good deal. Exhaustion was setting in and so we rested at the Hotel before going for an Irish stew at Murray’s pub next door and we planned our escape in the morning.