Ireland oh Ireland!

Our road trip from Barmouth to Holyhead on Anglesey was picturesque and the traffic flowed so good trip. Holyhead is a small seaside town where ferries go from over to Dublin but no issures finding the ferry terminal where Dave dropped me and the bags off while he dropped the car off and walked back - it really is that small! Ferry was smaller than the Calais one but with a lot more walk-on passengers like us. Once again a bus was used to take us through security and onto the bus. Love this delivery service. It was a lovely day with the Irish Sea nice and calm so Dave was happy. No seasick pills for him.

First sighting of the Irish coast. Very exciting!

Coming into Dublin was a massive surprise for me. The city goes around a bay with the port in the middle. 

As you can see Dave was very interested and stunned by the scenery coming into the port! He is actually reading a Jack Reacher book.

After a bus ride to our hotel, we realised our hotel was smack bang in the middle of town, one street back on the north side by O'Connell St ( main CBD road). Very handy to pubs that crop up every three or four shops. Dave timed that he had his first Guiness within 45mins of arriving. It was it this quaint corner small pub with locals.

The first day was hop-on-off bus which goes 3 min from our hotel. Great to see the sights and what we need to see later.

There are just as many churches as are pubs! However apparently the church going population is declining so some churhes are being sold. We heard of one that has been bought to make into a food hall. The owners have to keep up the heritage outside at least.

Right across the middle of the city is the River Liffey which cuts it into the North and South side. It has many bridges across it for the traffic.

This is the second highest obelisk?? in the world, found in this huge park at the side of town called Phoenix Park which is the Wellington monument for Duke of Wellington. The park is two times as big as Central Park in New York which blew me away. It has walkways, lakes and the zoo!

We actually did get off to visit Jameson Distillery which doesn't distill from there anymore but has this amazing tasting, information type place you can visit. This was for you John Malcolm!

Lots of whiskey bottles around the walls.

See the sign? Love the Irish humour - this is for whiskey tasting.

The chandeliers were made of empty whiskey bottles. 

We were going to buy an Irish rugby ball as a joke for our little nephew Cooper who loves rugby and the All Blacks. Dave has absolutely refused any kind of Irish rugby anything (including a visit to the main rugby stadium) as he sees it as supporting the opposition who are top of the rugby world at the moment. Needless to say this was a photo of the ball only!

This is a building of apartments Bono owns (U2) and up the top is a recording studio.

Down O'Connell St (main drag) is this the sphere/needle/which is soooooo high, but has no real meaning or symbolism at all. Cost of 400 million Euro for the millennium but in typical Irish fashion was late finishing and finished in 2003! big joke for the Irish in town. 

We loved this sign, however to be fair, coldish days (it is summer and people are in puffer jackets!) but no rain so far.

Lovely story about these buildings as apparently there was a window tax operating a few hundred years ago by the British to stop the too much use of glass, so the Irish had a basement in the bottom (no glass) and then the windows got smaller and smaller as the floors went up as the main living part was the bottom two floors, and the rest were bedrooms and the top was where the servants lived. Very clever.

This was a bank built at the time of the window tax so no glass windows (filled in with stone) and there are skylights in the roof to let the light in.

Piece of the origional old wall around the city.

Later that day we went for our Guinness tour. We are discovering you need to pre-book lots of things if you want to get in (even if it is free ) as there are tourists everywhere. We walked in at our set time and above are all the people waiting who had walked in off the road. Silly people. Cost of the tour includes guinness tasting and a pint up in the 360d bar at the top of the factory.

You walk around a set course which takes you floor to floor telling the story of the history, ingredients, making, barrell making etc. Water is very important to the making and there is a waterfall in the middle.

Bit of history, Arthur Guinness founded the factory in the 1700's on the site we were on. It was outside the city walls and he signed a 9000 year old lease on 45acres of land (now 63 acres) so Irish opportunist! He married Mary and they had 21 children (obviously loved sex! poor Mary). The rights and factory etc have been handed down and still in family's hands.

Most fascinating was the barrel making (which they stopped using in the 1920's) but the process was filmed back then and very tiring to watch. The effort of making these by hand was exhausting.

In the 2000's this creative huge (nearly floor to ceiling)  wood and copper guinness glass was carved with many decorations about the history of the beer, and the light structure at the top (to represent the froth at the top of the pint) has lights that change so it looks alive. Amazing!

So the Guinness tasting was fun - you line up as large group and they take you to a tasting room and there is the smell of hops and beer coming out of these pipes. Then a lady explains all about how you need to drink it while another lady is behind the bar pouring beer into these tiny glasses, then you had to sip it all together etc. It is way too hoppy for me (by the way the colour is 'ruby red') so Dave was happy to down mine.

Celtic harp is the symbol of Guinness. Great story of how Ireland wanted to use the harp as their symbol when it became a republic but Guinness had the patent rights to it and refused to give it up so the govt. very cleverly just reversed the harp symbol to the other way!

I know it is silly but the floor I really enjoyed was the advertising floor, where they had all the icons that had been used in advertising Guinness over the years. Obviously we had no idea about what it was all about but then there was a huge 180degree screen where you could sit and watch all the TV ads over the years. They were very funny!

On the top floor at the end of the tour was the 380degree bar which had views all over the city, lots of chairs and tables, bars and music - plus where you could get your free pint of Guinness! Needless to say we stayed there for a while and yes I did drink at least half of mine! (PS - the view showed that Dublin is quite a flat city and spread out with little high landmarks or buildings you could pick out)

It was 6pm by the time we left and while waiting for the bus outside, we came across these poor horses attached to buggies that could take you for a ride back to your hotel etc. Needless to say very expensive.

On the way back in the bus we drove along side the river and saw different bridges. This was designed to look like an open book.

NEXT DAY - 3 HOUR WALKING TOUR

Yes folks - I actually took part in this! It was free and part of the bus ticket so I thought why not? Our guide was a guy about 30ish and soo funny! He was the stereo-type Irish with the gift for story telling and jokes and made the 3 hours go so fast. Below is hilarious.It is a Viking Splash Duck type vehicle and you go on it with Viking helmets (can you see them?) for everyone and every now and again they are made to let out this huge Viking yell as they drive along, then they go down into the river. I really wanted to go on it! Which leads me onto our guide, who said he came from the North side of town, a catholic and had a poorish upbringing. He said the South side of town, where all the museums, Trinity College, flash parks etc were for the posh protestants. Anyway he said his father used to drive one of these boat things.

Guess who this is a statue of??? Molly Malone! If you have good eyes you can see her breasts have been highly polished by touch over the years. (By the way on the hop-on-off bus the bus driver actually gives the commentary and on the first one the driver was hilarious and witty, and he burst into song on various occasions, one of which was pass this statue. He had a great voice too and got lots of applause!)

Our walking tour guide - Connor- was quite political and made comments on the catholic/protestant situation a lot, plus how this part of Ireland historically rejected British rule. This was the proclamation of Independence which was on a wall. (the original is held in Trinity College).

The Temple Bar - bar! Bit of a joke because the area is called Temple Bar after a Mr Temple.

Another Irish fun fact - oldest working post box in Dublin. It has the English crown and emblem of King Edward from about 1920. When Ireland gained independence rather that destroying all the letter boxes which had the crown on them, they just painted them green instead. Love it! 

Going into the Dublin castle area, which as a castle was a great let down,

The tower was called Records Tower as until recently it contained records but was also a jail. The walls had two different types of stone (due to restoring the tower). This part of the 'castle' was also done out in three different types of stone due to renovations. Very bitsy to look at.

On the other side of the castle tower was a lovely park with tiny pathways that make the celtic knot if looked at from above. I really like this picture because it shows the old Dublin castle walls with the brand new building behind it!

 

LAST FULL DAY - 5 hour walking by ourselves! Sore feet.

So today was to be our academic/knowledge etc type day. Dave chose to go to the Museum of Archeology (beautiful dome ceiling below as you walk in), which surprised me. It was really interesting with lots about the early stone man here, gold artifacts (no gold in Ireland where did it come from in the iron age?) but also 'the bog men'. There is a lot of digging of ancient sites here in Ireland and peat bogs have uncovered many treasures (they use x-ray type machines that look through the bog below). Anyway the museum had 4 different bog men there, which were well-preserved bodies of men from the iron age and detail about their life is on the walls. They could tell gender, size, height, what they ate, how they died by the bodies and exposed organs. It was fascinating - but done respectfully. Therefore no photos. Go online and google bog men and you can read about them. All I can say is they look like wood and you can see how they lay in the bog.

We also went to the National Art Gallery (my choice) - Dave sat in the cafe and had a coffee. Early Irish artists were very boring! As these intellectual places are all in the same area we went for a rest and walk in this gorgeous park opposite. Quite large with a lake and parts of the lawn unmown (there was a sign that said 'no mow May' and apparently it is quite common now in Europe - we noticed this all over - to leave the verges unmown in May, late Spring, so wild flowers and weeds could grow and provide food for the bees for pollination - great idea). Anyway people were taking photos of this bird in a wild, fenced off area.

Can you see it? It is a heron sitting on a branch overseeing a nest full of babies!

Trinity College and the Book of Kells/Long Room

On my wish list (Dave's was the Guinness factory) was the see the above place. Trinity College is an old university set up by Queen Elizabeth the 1st for the rich, young protestant men to be educated to stop the influence of popery! (the pope/Catholic church). So this religious thing has been going for a long time. Our walking tour guide Connor was quite bitter because up to 1970 no Catholic men were allowed into the college, or women of any type. He had to go to the city of Dublin University which is not so prestigious.

Once again you had to pay and book a time (very popular) . 

The Long Room is the old library of the university, so named because it is very long! It has these gorgeous ceilings and little alcoves for different books about different topics. You could see the shelves and the alphabet lettering but some of it did not make sense. Some very old books.

Very ancient celtic harp given to the college.

Original of the proclamation of independence.

Marble busts of important men of the college go down the room. See the ladders? They have them in each alcove.

The Book of Kells is a special book (which you actually see) made by monks on the island of Iona in Scotland in early 8th century. the Vikings kept invading so they sent it to Ireland for safe keeping and it ended up in Kell and then Trinity College. Each page is hand-scribed with the most elaborate art work done by nibs of tiny pens. You cannot take photos but they have large pictures up on the walls with explanation about the symbols. These monks were amazingly clever.

So all a very enlightening day and very tired! We went back to our room for a little rest then at 7pm out again for a Celtic dinner and music/dance concert.

This was very interesting because it was held in a basement below a pub, held at least 600 or more people and gets booked out quickly. There is candlelight on each table (fire hazard in itself) and runs along the lines of Dracula's on the Gold coast in Aussie. You get allocated seats at long tables with other people you don't know, and get food and drink. Then the Celtic band comes on and they sing Irish songs with 4 Irish dancers coming on and off, for 2 hours. We were with 4 Germans and 4 Italian types! It was funny because the band do their usual what country are you from (we were only Kiwis) but the Americans kept saying Ohio, New York, etc not the country. They were given heaps from the band about that! Very good show, and we got on well with our neighbours who could speak English and were great fun, singing and clapping along. 

Dublin - you have worn us out! Taken all our money (very expensive here) but made us laugh so much.