Vacation 2009 - day 3

April 23, 2009 - Dublin

Up around 8:30am, breakfast in the hotel cafe. Drizzly day. Walked down to Trinity College area to see the National Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland. The National Museum is small but had lots of good exhibits of bronze age gold and other artifacts, people whose bodies had been found in bogs, and medieval artifacts. The National Gallery was bigger. In fact, we didn't have time to see everything there. Many nice Renaissance and pre-Renaissance images and a nice section on Dutch painters.

Had a good lunch at the Queen of Tarts, and bought some nice scones. Visited a traditional music record stores, Claddagh Records, bought a cd and got a recommendation where to hear some live music.

Went on a Dublin Castle tour, including a tour of the ruins underneath the current 18th century building. Then walked around north of the Liffey for a while in the drizzle and then back to the hotel for a break.

During supper, we got a call from our travel agent. Our hotel in Edinburgh had been bought and closed temporarily. They had transferred us to a four star hotel nearby.

After supper, we walked to the Cobblestone pub to have a pint of Guinness and hear some trad Irish music. It was quite good, though they did take long breaks between songs. It was a male flute player and a female concertina player. The bar staff was very friendly and instructed Stacey in how to drink a Guinness properly.

Then we had to head back for an early night to get ready for a our flight the next morning.

(pictures from Dublin)