In Dublin's Fair City

What a great time we are having in Dublin. Great city, plenty to see, plenty to do - just not enough hours.

Sorry folks, still no photos. I didn't realise that a new laptop meant new memory card reading requirements. Will try to pick up a card reader tomorrow, so watch out for photos galore.

The Literary Pub Crawl last night was fabulous. Despite how extremely tired we all were we braved it to the first pub for a little entertainment and lots of laughter. Lost a few after that pub, but the rest of us soldiered on. After pub #2 we lost another three; after pub #3 we were down to half strength and none of us made it into pub #4.

Along the way we learned a little about James Joyce and other notable Irish poets and writers, with the bonus of seeing inside some great old pubs. When not suffering from acute jet-lag this would be a great night out.

Today, Thursday, we had a guide with us all day. I'm always amazed with the knowledge that folk like that have tucked up in their heads. Mia made our day very interesting, informative and entertaining.

We visited the National Museum which is housed in an old army barracks. www.museum.ie/

 The collections are vast and very well displayed & described. We missed our last 1/2 hour there as the building was cleared after the fire alarm went off.  Oh well, nevermind, that gave us more time at Phoenix Park. Check it out for yourself. http://www.phoenixpark.ie (you might need to copy & paste this address)

While we were there most of us went into the cafe in the Visitors Centre. Fabulous food and great coffee.

From there we drove back into the city centre in time for lunch before visiting Trinity College Library. The highlight there was seeing and learning about The Book of Kells. http://www.tcd.ie/Library/bookofkells/book-of-kells/  Very interesting - wait till you can see my photos, just amazing.

We completed our city tour and were dropped back at the Gresham Hotel at 5pm.


Our dinner tonight was at the Brazen Head Pub, supposedly Ireland's oldest pub, it was established in 1198. Great grub, fabulous company and nobody really minded when the taxis arrived at 9pm to bring us back to the hotel.

Another big day tomorrow as we head for Cork, via Mount Mellick and an embroidery lesson.