How about you, Dublin?

When we were allowed to disembark in Dublin on Sept. 24, Nancy and I had a plan.  We wanted to get on the first shuttle into the center city, get to the Trinity College Library to see The Book of Kells before the line was too long.  That's just what we did, and the exhibit was not even open yet, so we just walked around the beautiful Trinity College for a few minutes.

When we got back to the entrance to the Kells Exhibit, there was a short line

Photography is prohibited in the exhibit, but you can see images at http://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home  The Book of Kells is a 9th century manuscript produced by the monks of Iona off the shore of Scotland.  It is beautifully illustrated.  The exhibit contained a lot of information about how the manuscripts were produced with great illustrations.  The actual manuscripts are changed each day to preserve them, so you get to walk around the two pieces that are on exhibit that day and get a very close look, along with several dozen of your newest international friends.

The exit from the exhibit takes you through the old library which is very Harry Potterlike.

We ended up in the Gift Shop where Mr. Poe made a new friend and exited to find that the line had gotten very long.

After a coffee and some free wifi in the student center, we wandered off in search of a museum.  Since we happened by the National Library of Ireland, we took a look inside.  The stained glass rivals that of many of the cathedrals we had seen.

We did eventually find the art museum, but it was being renovated and only had a few pieces on exhibit (including a Picasso) but photos were not allowed.  That was a brief visit, and we were hungry, so we stopped by a gourmet cheese shop and bought some craft cheese and excellent bread for a great lunch.

Our next goal was to get to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. On our way we checked out the local market, but it was mostly kitsch—not like some markets we had seen.  The walk to the Cathedral was worthwhile, and for a small admission price we had interesting time. The exterior had nice examples of flying buttresses and spouts. I'm showing a few examples of the beauty.

Oh, and did I mention that Jonathan Swift is buried here?

Since we were only a few blocks away, we decided to check out the St Audoen’s Church—one of the oldest churches and built just inside the original city walls.  We were to find that many cities we visited had city walls for protection.  Inside, we found a Semester at Sea class on a field lab.

After this, we were supposed to meet some friends to have dinner and hear some Irish music in a neighborhood pub outside the city center.   We grabbed a milkshake to help us with the 10 block walk to the meet-up, and then caught one of the trains to the neighborhood where the pub was located.  It was a busy, noisy, crowded pub, so we were not able to get to near the musicians who seemed to be locals who came and went.  At one time there were as many as eight musicians playing a variety of instruments.  It was an interesting experience, but we really couldn’t hear much.  We had our “pint”, stayed for a while and headed back to the shuttle bus to the ship after a long day. Through some mis-communication, the shuttle bus had stopped running, so we ended up taking a cab back. I sure didn't want to add any more miles on these tired legs.