In the Trafalgar literature, when you have free time to explore a city, they will write it as "City Your Way". We decided to skip the Guinness tour on Day 8 of the trip and do Dublin Our Way. I had looked at a few options the night before, and we decided to just wake up on our own and see how we felt in the morning.
At breakfast, we decided we wanted to first see the Viking museum "Dublinia". I hopped on to their website with my phone and purchased tickets, and then ordered a cab to pick us up at the hotel (even though it was only about a mile and a half away - we figured we'd save our feet for later).
We thoroughly enjoyed this museum and spent a couple of hours exploring the interactive exhibits, chatting with the knowledgable and friendly tour guides, and learning so much about the history of Dublin.
N was posting Instagram Stories of our adventures every day. She somehow got into a theme of posting pictures of "Poop Holes" we saw at each castle, but today was the cream of the crop. Dublinia has a Poop Man! This is a mannequin, complete with an audio soundtrack, using a Viking poop hole! It was hilarious and somewhat disturbing!
We found a small place for lunch, and after a pleasant meal we wandered through Temple Bar towards Trinity College to see the Book of Kells.
Temple Bar is an area of the city that reminds me a bit of New Hope, PA, or the arts district in Toronto. The streets are closed to traffic for the most part. The stores are colorful and bright, there is live music blasting into the streets from the pubs and restaurants, and there are some adorable courtyards hidden behind the main buildings.
We took our time exploring and taking pictures and Curt and I regretted that later. I randomly ducked into an ally and followed it for a little bit, and we stumbled upon a Graffiti wall full of love letters and poems and confessions. N says "I just thought that was really beautiful and I have pictures. Graffiti is encouraged in Dublin and is a form of public art just as much as the bridges and sculptures around the city are, and showcase the young artists."
It had never occurred to me to look online first, and we were sorely disappointed when we arrived at the Book of Kells library to find out they were entirely sold out of tickets for the day.
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| Book of Kells is inside this building. We were not. |
Curt and I had a moment of totally-bummed-out to be so close and to have to miss seeing this, but after allowing ourselves a bit of time to wallow, we moved on. We walked back to the hotel and decided that, since we still had time before dinner, we would check out the little museum right outside our hotel - the Jeanie Johnston.
This is a replica of a ship that crossed from Ireland to Canada 16 times to take immigrants away from the potato famines to a new life in Canada, and never lost a passenger.
Our tour guide was very chatty, and he and Curt got along very well. The girls and I were freezing, though, so we hurried the tour along a bit just so we could get back inside and warm up!
After a bit of time to rest in the hotel and warm up, we rejoined the group for dinner at an Irish pub that night. The place was stunning and the food yummier than usual, for Ireland!
The whole city of Dublin was decked out for Pride Day (which was the following day)/Month. N and S said they could see the "harp" bridge from their hotel window, and it lit up at night in rainbow colors at night.
(I admit I'm jealous! I didn't know the girls had this view until we got home and they showed me this video. Our room looked out on a back alley. LOL!)
Bed was very welcome, as we had an early start the next day, to get back to "the mainland".
When we get more pictures, they'll be here: https://link.shutterfly.com/q8RpyB8rPrb
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