Month: June 2010

We woke to another pleasant day, our last here in Dublin before heading off for our bike-riding adventures. We headed out mid-morning for what turned out to be a nice leisurely day, deciding what we wanted to do on the spur of the moment, and enjoying every minute!

A definite highlight of our stay here has been the variety of interesting architecture. The photos above and below are but two examples of the styles we’ve encountered. I know no details about the building above, we just loved the combo of the orange brick and the turquoise dome. The one below is Dublin Castle. The oldest part (which isn’t visible) dates from the early 13th century, and the tower in the photo was built in 1411!

The activities for the day were a little more shopping, a visit to the National Gallery, a walk through two different parks, not to mention a lot more walking in general! In the morning we explored the shopping on Francis St., but it turned out to be almost exclusively antiques. Undeterred, we headed back to the main south-side shopping area, looking for a fish & chips shop. Low and behold, we ended up coming up the street where the “oldest chipper in Dublin” was located, which I’d noticed the day we arrived! Since it’s a “takeaway”-only shop (like most fish & chips places), we took our brown bag and wandered down to the Trinity College green where we could enjoy our lunch on a nice bench and share some chips with the pigeons. It was dee-lish!

Below is a photo of Mallory next to one of two huge beautiful Oregon Maples on the Trinity College Campus…

After lunch we decided to visit the National Gallery of Ireland, where the highlights were a show of new acquisitions. The pieces were from a wide variety of periods and schools of art, but my favorite was a small Van Gogh from when he first moved to Paris, before his style became so intensely impressionistic.

In the late afternoon we opted for walks through two of Dublin’s beautifully and densely landscaped parks. The first, St. Steven’s, was bigger, so we didn’t explore it very much. Archbishop Ryan Park, in Merrion Square, was smaller, with lots of interesting little areas. It also had some spectacular evergreen plantings, an example of which is below:

After working up an appetite for dinner, we thought we’d stick with the seafood theme for the day and go for that other traditional Irish pescatarian delicacy… sushi! We found a friendly little sushi bar right on the river, and had one more very sweet dinner together in Dublin.

Here’s one last photo from today. Another rare picture of your intrepid blogger/photographer, this time perched on a cool bronze throne sculpture in Merrion Square (but still looking like a gnome)…

The weather was perfect today in Dublin, mild with a light breeze and scattered clouds, with nary a raindrop to be seen. We slept in a little, so had to hustle to catch a bus and get downtown for our first activity of the day: the 1916 Rebellion walking tour.

The anti-tourist in me had a little trepidation about going on a two-hour tour like that, but in the end I was very glad we did…

What made the difference was the fact that it was led by an irascible character named Lorcan Collins. He was a wonderful storyteller, with a booming voice and a quick wit. He was so obviously full of passion for his subject that he really drew you in.

We walked all over City Centre, visiting historic sites and hearing lots of stories, many inspired by statues of the men who led the uprising for Irish independence on Easter of 1916. While the rebellion succumbed a week later, it did eventually lead to independence (in 1922, I believe).

One of the statues, of James Larkin, right across from the General Post Office (which the rebels took over) had a quote on it that really spoke to me: “The great only appear great because we are on our knees; let us rise”.

The tour ended right near Trinity College, where the famous Book of Kells resides. It’s a little disappointing, as there are only two actual pages on display. The exhibition is well put-together, however, with all you could want to know about the background of the manuscript. No photos were allowed anywhere in the Library, so I can’t show you anything here…

What I can show you is a few highlights from Merrion Square, where we went next. It’s a neighborhood not far from City Centre that is known for it’s Georgian architecture, particularly the ornate and colorful doors:

On the way to the square, we had spotted the Porterhouse Pub, which the guidebooks describe as having the best selection of beer in town. So it was there that we found ourselves for dinner, bellied up to the bar in a crowded pub full of World Cup soccer fans. It was really quite fun, and we each had a pint and some decent bar food before heading off to catch another movie…

Tonight’s film was “Please Give”, a quirky comedy with Katherine Keener and Oliver Platt.

Tired but satisfied, we arrived back at the hotel an hour or so ago. Time to rest up for our last day in Dublin tomorrow. We haven’t even been to a museum yet, so I think we’ve got another full day ahead of us!

What a shock it is to find ourselves plunked down in this gritty international capital city, after our idyllic time in Devon… Quite the change of scene!

After a short and uneventful flight from Exeter, we had an easy bus ride into downtown Dublin and found ourselves at the hotel before one o’clock. Minutes later, having ditched our bags, we were on a bus back to “City Centre”. Though it had been drizzling at the airport, thankfully the rain had stopped completely by then.

As you can see, Dublin is quite a colorful city, though we both commented on its noticeably seedy side as well…

Mal and I stumbled around the most touristy part of City Centre (called Temple Bar) for a couple of hours, had tea & scones at a quaint little shop called The Queen of Tarts, before deciding to take in a movie. We saw something called “His & Hers”, which is a documentary of a sort, based on an old Irish proverb: “a man loves his girlfriend the best, his wife the most, and his mother the longest”. It was simply a long string of artfully framed shots of babies, girls, young, middle-aged and elderly women (in that order) from the Irish midlands, talking about the men in their lives. Full of sweet and poignant moments, it was a wonderfully unusual film.

After that, we took in a bit more wandering around and people-watching, including lots of buskers like the two above. Then it was time for a nice dinner!

We looked through our guidebooks and found a place that sounded good called the Winding Stair, which just happened to be right across the street! We got a table looking out on the Ha’Penny bridge, and were even blessed with a little sun and blue sky poking through the clouds as we ate a delicious meal made from fresh local ingredients. After enjoying their famous bread & butter pudding for dessert (with a scoop of homemade ice cream on top, of course) there was a little waddle in my step as we found our way back to the hotel…

And now? Time for bed!