We arrived in Dublin in the wee hours of the night (little Irish there for ya!) so when we awoke we were free to go ashore. Since nothing opened until 9:00 there was not a rush. We took the ships shuttle into town as it was a 40-50 minute walk and we were already cut back by one hour here. Evidently something to do with the tides, but we had to be back on ship at 2:00 instead of 3:00. Oh well....take what you can get.
Our first stop was to Trinity College. It is Ireland's oldest college and is home to the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is the oldest known book of the 4 gospels. The journey to them takes you through artifacts dating back to before 800 AD. Amazing what people found in their fields. It's always amazing to me to stand before something of that age. In addition, there were many 16th-18th century books and artifacts on display in the Long Room. The Long Room holds 200,000 of the oldest books. It was at least 3 storys high. A person can actually still check these books out with permission, but they are roped off to the general public. Sorry but no pictures inside were allowed. Here is the outside. Beautiful old college.
We left the college and hopped on the HOHO (Hop On Hop Off) bus. The day was sunny and crisp so we rode on top.
We toured on the bus before we got off at our next critical location....the Guiness Brewery. Since we were a little rushed for time, we didn't probably see everything here we wanted to, but we did do the most important class....how to draw your own pint. Just to note, the Guiness Draught here tastes nothing like what we drink in America. It is very dark, ruby red is what they call it, but it's not bitter and was mighty tasty. Alan found what he wants to do in retirement!
They say ours is different due to shipping and time spent in the barrel. What we had here is no more than 10 days old. The 60 acres this brewery sits on belongs to the Guinness family under a 9000 year lease (yep, not a typo) for something like 45 Euros a year. This includes sole access to the water supply coming from the mountain. No other water is used in the beer. The lease has 8000 years to go. Really like to know who negotiated that one!
After a few hours here, we were starting to get short on time. We left and got back on the HOHO but after talking to the driver realized we weren't going to make it back to the shuttle in time for the last one. The HOHO driver kindly pulled up next to a taxi and let us out and we took the taxi back to port.
All in all a wonderful day. The HOHO drivers are extremely entertaining and I would look forward to riding the entire circle with them.
Tomorrow we are in Liverpool until 9:00 pm. Hoping for the same fine weather we have had so far this trip.
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