Dublin

Sept 2 Sunday

We arrived in Dublin this morning on schedule.   Unfortunately, there was no granola breakfast, only oatmeal (and it was watery!).

We have signed up for a Guinness tour and a free – three hour walking tour.  We are going out on our own.

Internet is painfully slow today – not a good sign with so few on the ship.

 When we left the ship we boarded a chartered bus to take us a couple of miles to the city center from the port.  Just past our shipped was docked a US Naval Ship – here to support the Naval Academy football team that played Notre Dame here here yesterday.  There are 35,000 US college football fans in the city!  They are everywhere.  Once in the city we walked around a bit and decided to get a Hop on Hop off bus ticket good for the two days we are here.  That was a good plan.  We got on road a bit and saw the walking tour we had signed up for at 1PM beginning its 11AM tour so we jumped off and started with them.

A good idea, because…the three hour walking tour turned out to be 4 hours!  We had spunky tour guide named Ursula.  She told us so much information we will never be able to remember all the topics she covered.  Barry's pictures will have help jar our memories.   We started at City Hall and then moved to Dublin Castle, and ended up at St Stephens Green.  She pointed out where U2 got it's start and told us the story of how Bono was not allowed in a bar across from where he recorded his first songs – Bono told the barman some day I will own this bar and fire you.  And he did!!  We heard history, politics, religion and social discourses for 4 hours almost non-stop.  I do not know how she does it.  It is a free tour – you sign up for online and then just show up.  She does tell you at the end that she is working for tips!  She only does 2 or 3 tours per week! 

Once she was done we hopped on a bus and went to Guinness Storehouse for the tour and then a pint on the top of their glass- enclosed bar!  Great views – loud and crowded thanks to the Fightn' Irish! 

We hopped back on the bus which took us into the large park on the other side of the river from where we've spent the day and then back toward the center of Dublin.  We looked looked for a place with traditional Irish food and music.  We ended up at the The Storehouse Bar – it was OK – Barry had an excellent seafood chowder, but Jayne's potato and leek soup and side salad was only ordinary. 

Back on the ship and tired!  One more day in Dublin tomorrow.

Monday, Sept 3

We started the day taking pictures of the famine immigrant's statues along the river walking towards the Jeanie Johnston, a replica of a ship that would have taken the 1 million plus to the US, Canada or Australia.  It is a wonderful display of human suffering.

We then got on the hop on hop off and headed to the Kilmainham Gaol (jail).  We had a good hour-long tour and saw much of the jail – both the old – dark and closed part and the new Victorian – post jail reform light and open part.  The building was about to be demolished when a group was formed to preserve it.  The main open part of the jail has been used in many movies and TV shows.  It has not been preserved, as something in the US would be.  But it is very effective.  We have lots of good pictures.  Again the tour guide was very good.  She recommended an excellent restaurant for our lunch – we did not want to come back into the city central for another meal.  She recommended Ryan's Parkgate Street Victorian Pub.  It uses locally grown foods.  Barry had bowl Cheshire Cheese Soup and a Spicy Lamb wrap and fresh French fries.  I had a salad with an excellent raspberry dressing, new potatoes and a goat cheese puff pastry tart.  It was all excellent.

We rode the bus back into the center of the city to see St Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedrals.  Both were charging to enter so only Barry went into St Patrick's.  We then walked in looking for a shirt we never found for Quentin and we had great help trying.  The only shirt for the Kilkenny Cats is written in Irish and I do not think that is what he wanted – if it is we missed it!   We were successful in finding Barry a new bean grinder to replace his worn out one.

Long wait for the bus back to the ship.  But we made it on to the second bus back.

Dinner on the ship and still no Internet.   Now that we're out of port the internet is working sporadically.  Maybe we can upload this to the blog, but we won't even try any pictures for now.