Vacation 2009 - day 1

April 21, 2009 - Dublin

Took coach from Dublin airport to Trinity College area and walked to our hotel near Christ Church Cathedral. Rainy/slightly cold day.

Dublin has lots of of old looking, brick buildings and a nice feel. Our hotel, the Harding, is quite nice - a large room with a great view of Christ Church. We walked back down to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and "The Dublin Experience". The college has an odd vibe because it has a lot of tourists wandering around but at the same time, it is a working college with normal college students.

The Book of Kells exhibit is very well done, with lots of info about the history of the book and similiar books, about its manufacture and almost destruction. When you get to the actual book, it's a little anti-climactic since you can only see four pages and they aren't as impressive as the large blowups that are part of the exhibition. After the book, you go into the Trinity College Old Library, which is an awesome two story room filled with very high shelves of old books. Afterwards, we had trouble finding "The Dublin Experience", so we went to find lunch at Powerscourt Tower, an 18th century house converted to a minimall. Decent food, but not great.

After that, Stacey looked at a few shops, we walked to Trinity to look for "The Dublin Experience" again, only to realize that it doesn't start until May. We walked back to the hotel room through the bar filled Temple Bar neighborhood.

(photos from Dublin)