Trip to Ireland – Dublin, Part V

This is the last leg our our trip, our last two days in Dublin.  We take the 6:30 a.m. train from Killarney to Dublin, and of course, the day we leave Killarney it was a perfect day.

Bygones.

We arrive in Dublin and the city bus service is a hop-on hop-off city tour which allows you to get on at any point or get off.  It’s basically a huge loop around the city.  Another reminder, it was raining almost the entire time we were in Dublin, except for the morning we left.  It rained the entire time.

Our first stop was Trinity College, which is I believe the most prestigious Irish university.  The main attraction at Trinity College is the Book of Kells.  Here are some photos of the university.

This is looking at the front entrance from inside the university:

Our next stop was Dublin Castle, which isn’t much of a castle today, but at one time it was.  The best about the castle grounds was an amazing Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit.  Long story short,Da Vinci wrote these treatise on the way water works, basically, he sat around all day and thought about things, and one of those things that he devoted all of his time to at one point was water.  The Chester Beatty Museum had all of these pages from Da Vinci’s works.  I should also note that some guy had purchased this exhibit and named it after himself.  Bill Gates then purchased the exhibit, renamed it to the old name (I wish I could remember, but I can’t) and opened up to the public, free of charge.  So now I can die and say I’ve seen Da Vinci’s work.  Of course, no pictures were allowed, which was also the case with the Book of Kells.

Sweet Sweet and I head back to the hotel and get dressed to go out for a nice dinner in the Temple Bar district.  We decide to eat at Quays Restaurant, the food was great.

Temple Bar street scene:

After dinner, we head to the most famous pub in Ireland, Temple Bar:

Sweet Sweet:

Me looking like a BMF:

Me, a little happier:

Sweet Sweet and myself:

The next morning, we head to Christ Church Cathedral and this was maybe my most favorite stop.  Christ Church is the oldest Catholic Church in Ireland (as an aside, St. Patrick’s church is Anglican).  No one was in the church except a few tourists:

Underneath the church is this huge crypt.  I know, it sounds creepy, but it’s not.  I was also informed I wasn’t supposed to take pictures until after I took one picture.   You can see a tomb at the end of the tunnel:

Back up top, you can see the intricate work on the columns:

Back outside:

Next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  The tourists were out in full force to see St. Patrick’s so Sweet Sweet and I decided to pass.  Here’s some photos of the exterior:

Now we’re off to the Guinness Brewery:

My lovely Sweet Sweet:

At the very top of the tour, there’s a huge bar where you can get your 1 pint of Guinness and glass walls to view the entirety of Dublin city:

We’re back on the bus and we thought we were headed a little further down the tour, but there was no room in the bottom of the bus and the driver insists that we sit in the top (the buses are double-decker buses).  The catch here is that the top of the bus is open-air (all but the first 3 rows are subjected to the elements).  It starts to rain like a son-of-a-gun, and not just sprinkling, but really raining.  We are getting soaked and I tell Sweet Sweet that we have to go downstairs and just get off at the next stop.  The next stop was Kilmainham Gaol, an old Irish prison.  At this point, we didn’t care where we stopped, we just needed a place to get dry.  The jail itself was fairly depressing, lots of people spent a lot of time in these cells who didn’t belong there:

At some point during the 1800’s they added on an addition to the prison:

The tour is over and now we have to wait for the bus and it’s raining more than ever.  After 30 minutes, we finally catch a bus, by this time it’s 3:00 p.m. and we haven’t eaten lunch so we duck into a pub that former Presidents Clinton and Bush Sr. ate at called Ryan’s:

Although you can’t tell by our faces, the food was great.

We’re back in the heart of Dublin and this is the Ha’penny Bridge:

After a little more shopping, I take a few pictures of Temple Bar:

I ask Sweet Sweet if she would mind having a few beers since the weather has cleared up.  She agreed to do so, but as soon as we sat down it started pouring again which meant that we would have to walk some distance to get back to our hotel in the rain.  This is Sweet Sweet putting on a brave face:

We skip dinner because of our late lunch and just go to bed.  We have an early flight the next morning so we decide to just call it a night.

A great trip, despite the rain.  I’d do it all over again and I think Sweet Sweet would too.