Ireland Day 2 - Dublin

Ha'penny Bridge

After sleeping for 12 hours, we got up and headed down to breakfast.  Breakfast was a choice of ordering off the menu or doing the buffet which was a traditional Irish Breakfast. We ordered off the menu. We both had Belgian waffles with bacon; the bacon was sandwich between two waffles.  The waffles were good but a but sweeter than what we get in the US. The waffles were supposed to come with a berry compote but only came with syrup, disappointing.  After breakfast we went back to the room to get ready to head out for the day.

Our first stop for the day was Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and the long room of the library.  The ticket said it was a tour, but it really isn’t a tour, it is a self-paced walk through some information panels describing the history and making of the Book of Kells, then you walk into the room where the book is housed.  It is a book with fancy pages.  I saw it and can now check that off the list.  After seeing the book, you walk up a set of stairs to the “long room”.  The room is supposed to be filled with books; however, they are doing restoration work so there were no books on the shelves, except for one tiny section.  My husband was like “we went to a library with no books, that is disappointing.”  In the library they also have the Brian Boru's harp which is both the symbol used by Guinness and by the Irish Government.  After viewing the library, we took some pictures of the bell tower on the grounds. Apparently students do not walk under the belltower because superstition says if they are under it when it chimes they will fail all their exams.   Since I’m going to war college in August, I felt it was a lot safer not to walk under the bell tower, don’t want to chance fate and see if applies to non-Trinity college students. Afterwards we stopped at the hotel quickly to grab bottles of water, then headed out for the rest of the day.

Alcove with books

View of Long Room

Trinity Bell Tower

We walked over the Liffey River and O’Connell bridge so I could get a picture of ha’penny bridge. Then walked down the street towards ha’penny bridge through the Temple Bar area to our next stop, Dublin Castle.  Dublin Castle is now a government building, but they do tours of some of the historic parts.  We went for the guided plus self-guided tour options.  This allowed us to see a few more areas of the castle including the powder tower and the old church on the grounds.  The guided portion of the tour was good, and the self-guided portion which we did first was also nice.  In the self-guided portion, you get to see the throne room, the formal sitting room, the ball room, and some other miscellaneous rooms.   After the castle we had lunch.

Church at Dublin Castle

After lunch we went to both the Irish Museum of Archaeology and the Irish Museum of Natural History which are both free.  The Irish Museum of Archeology was ok.  They did have one interesting exhibit “Kings and Sacrifices”.   The title just sounds like it will be a great exhibit, but you walk in and there are all these large round pillar things with information plaques on them which makes it seem less exciting.  It is obvious at first, but you are supposed to read the information board then walk around the pillar through a spiral opening to see the actual preserved dead person and or body part in the center.  I know why they did it this way, so little kids and people wouldn’t be disturbed by the desiccated remains of people missing heads and other body parts.  After the Museum of Archeology, we headed over to the Natural History Museum which is also known as the “dead zoo” due to the amount of taxidermy animals on display.  I was excited to see this museum because the pictures I saw online just gave me old 1800s museum vibes.  Sadly, the museum was under partial renovation so we didn’t get to go up to the second floor and they put a ceiling in between the first and second floors so you couldn’t even look up and see the old iron and glass ceiling.  It was good, just not as great as expected.  After the museum we called it a day and headed back to the hotel for a little rest.

Ancient Irish Deer

Tomorrow, we leave Dublin behind and head down to Kinsale.