And a short post it will be…
It is a good thing I did not plan on doing a post every day because it is already clear that we won’t have time for that.
We arrived in Dublin pretty much on time. That surprised me given the turmoil with the shutdown and ATC and TSA people working without pay. Our taxi ride from the airport was interesting because the driver was happy to talk—actually, I am not sure we could have stopped him. Oh, sure, you say; all the Irish all have the gift of gab. Possibly true, but this driver was from Northern Africa. He’s been here for 29 years so maybe “gab” is contagious.
We had lots of time before we could check in so we walked around the nearby area, mostly to re-familiarize ourselves with the streets and to try to remember which way to look when we crossed the streets. Our hotel is right next to the River Liffey, and steps away from the famous Ha’penny Bridge.
After getting settled in the afternoon, we crossed the river into the Temple Bar area. That’s a food and music area. We found the Old Storehouse, which sometimes plays Irish Traditional music-but Wednesday was not one of those nights. The music was good, though, and the food was very good.
Thursday (today) we walked to Trinity College (everything we want to do in Dublin is within walking distance) to see the Book of Kells (Irish literary treasure from the 9th century). We saw it when we were here 7 years ago, but wanted to see it again. I’ll post pictures later. The new “Book of Kells Experience” is now in two different buildings. The Red Pavilion hosts an immersive experience about the Book of Kells and the restoration work being done to the Old Library’s Long Room. We were quite impressed.
After Trinity, we walked to the Irish Museum. We also visited it (twice) when we were here before and could not wait to get back. It covers a huge among of Irish history and the displays are well-presented. (Pictures from there later, too.)
We had the nearly inevitable discussion about where to eat, but we finally settled on a nice restaurant called The Ivy, where we had a nice meal.
We thought we would have time for a little rest before we went to hear music in the evening, but it seemed we had no sooner returned to the hotel when it was time to go. Fortunately, the first music venue was directly across the river from the hotel. We went on what’s called a pub crawl, but despite the name, there was little drinking involved. Instead, two local musicians played traditional Irish music for us and discussed some of the history of that music and the instruments on which it is played. We went to a second location with them for more music. The group was small, so we could ask questions. The musicians were knowledgeable, and we had a good time.
It was a busy day and a half and you can probably understand why it is going to take time to post pictures.
