Busy in Dublin

A few random pictures from my day. I got up way too early, made it over on a rough, bumpy flight, but I hadn’t had coffee, so I was fine. I don’t speak Gaelic, but fortunately, lots of translations

The hotel didn’t have my room ready, but they kept my bags, and I set out for a day in Dublin. I’d picked a hotel nearer some touristy stuff, so I set off across the street to the Kilmainham Gaol (jail).

Some fascinating history told there about the independence of Ireland. It made me want to learn more, but also I could understand how there’s a hatred of Britain that extended well into the 20th century.

I also went to see the Book of Kells, one of the early recordings of the four gospels. It’s interesting, and after I read a book that featured it, I wanted to see it. Not sure if I ever would.

It’s at Trinity College, where there are lots of sculptures, including this large golden sphere rotating and polished. I grabbed a snapshot of it.

No pictures inside the museum with the Book of Kells, but I was amazed. Not at the book, which wasn’t as amazing to me as it might be to some, but amazed that it was from 800AD. That’s an amazing amount of time for it to have survived.

I hit another museum, and it was getting late in the day, so I stopped the St James Gate Guinness Brewery. I like beer, and this is a famous part of Ireland.

It’s a self guided tour, but interesting, and at the end, I learned to pour my own Guinness, which was neat, but not necessarily something I’ll be doing much more of.

Late in the day, tired, I spent a few minutes on my balcony. The one nice thing about traveling so much and sticking to one hotel brand is I get some nice rooms.

A little exercise dinner in the hotel (where I had a great red lentil and butternut squash soup) and that was the end of a day off.