We definitely set out to make the most of our last day in this fair city of Dublin! Initially, we really wanted to check out Kilmainham Gaol (former prison and site of many important Dublin/Irish historical events) but when I checked yesterday, the tickets were sold out for the next three days. I guess we'll just have to come back... Plan B had us going to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. More on that in a second. But first! We had an amazing breakfast (rashers again for me, at which Christopher pronounced that I have to officially hand over my vegetarian membership card) and as promised (to J) we rode the tram called the Luas...
We got off on O'Connell Street and wandered back toward Trinity College, which was
so crowded! One of the interesting things for me about this trip is comparing both the time of year as well as the "18 years later." Things are obviously more packed in the summer than winter and the popularity of Ireland as a vacation spot has improved a lot of museums and tours. Anyway, we prebooked our Book of Kells tour. It was very interesting to learn about how the monks created the book (as well as similar ones) with what we would consider limited resources. After seeing an example of a couple of the folios of the book, we visited my favorite spot, the Long Room. It is literally a long room filled with floor to ceiling books, some of which are hundreds of years old!
After our visit to Trinity, we took the DART (aka, local commuter train) down to the seaside town of Dalky, where we wandered around, ate lunch and checked out the real estate (lol--it's quite pricey). The boys enjoyed trying yet another form of Ireland's transportation and we had a wonderful lunch! The food, by the way, has been excellent here. I had seafood chowder (again being reminded by Chris that my vegetarian status is rapidly dropping) and it was worth every bite. The boys can't complain--they got to eat on a couch!
Being a seaside town, Dalkey has quite a history of fortifications and castles set up as defense. We would know more about the remnants still in the town except that Tuesday is the day the museum is closed. Anyway, we saw the outside of a 10th century castle. This is why Ireland is so cool; imagine there's a 10th century castle on your main street!
Back to the train, and back to Dublin!
After a brief rest at the hotel, we went back out to Temple Bar to listen to a final round of traditional music and did we find a great performance! Just two guys--a guitar and a tin whistle and they were fantastic. Jonathan was wiped out and slept through most of it, but we had a great time listening!
The boys had what felt like their 100th meal of pizza (pretty good pizza, all of it, by the way) and then we indulged in what appears to be a Dublin trend. We didn't see this anywhere else in Ireland but apparently ridiculously huge, gourmet donuts are a thing in Dublin. This whole trip, we have passed store fronts and bakeries displaying these behemoths and today, we let the boys each get one. Chris got the s'mores and Jonathan got the oreo...
You can see by their faces, they were going to like these donuts and they did! It has been an amazing trip. I love this country so much and it was a pleasure to share it with the boys, who were fantastic travelers. We have started gathering our things for our journey home tomorrow which will start early in the morning. See you in the states!
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