Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Ireland - Day 1

We landed in Dublin around 7 am local time and hit the ground running. After picking up our rental car, we set off to find the hotel. We knew we couldn't check in, but we wanted to park and leave our luggage there before setting off to explore the city.

Not only do the Irish drive on the other side of the car and the other side of the road...their streets are super narrow and crowded! It didn't help that it was time for everyone to be walking, biking and driving to school and work. It was a VERY stressful drive to the hotel, but we made it.

We knew we wanted to see Trinity College and the Book of Kells, so we headed there first. It was only a few blocks from the hotel and we found it easily. It was cloudy and gray when we arrived, but quickly blue skies showed up. Thankfully, it wasn't very crowded and we were able to get in and see the exhibit easily. I actually recognized a woman there that was on our flight.





The Long Room was AMAZING! I could have stayed in here for hours just looking around.












Next we decided to hit another popular tourist destination in Dublin...the Guinness Storehouse. We were pretty hungry and wanted something to eat, but decided to wait until we got to Guinness. Our plan was to eat, then do the tour and drink our sample (pint) of beer. It was a 1 1/2 mile walk and we got to see quite a bit of the city.







beautiful lamposts



colorful doors




Finally we arrived. Much to our disappointment, none of their cafes or restaurants opened until noon or later. So we got to drink beer on an empty stomach - probably not the wisest thing but we survived.






I don't even remember where we got lunch, but we ate something and then explored more of the city. We went by St. Patrick's Cathedral.






We also went into some stores - including this music store.





front of our hotel





We walked to the River Liffey and saw some of the famous bridges you see often in photos




And finally, we walked through St. Stephen's Green - a park just a block from our hotel.






We were exhausted from traveling and walking and were asleep by 8:30pm!

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