My Nutter Butter and I flew from Edinburgh to Dublin in the evening and so we arrived after dark. We took the bus from the airport to the city center and headed to our hotel. The River Liffey runs right through the middle of Dublin. Our hotel was on the south side of the river. Dublin is much more of a mix of historical and modern architecture.
We were ready to explore by the next morning and started with a very yummy breakfast at The Pepper Pot Cafe' in the Powerscourt Centre. The location was a former city residence for the Richard Wingfield family, the 3rd Viscount of Powerscourt. The building now houses a variety of shops, restaurants and offices. I had a very yummy yogurt and granola bowl with poached pears and we shared a delicious raspberry scone with Irish butter - so, so good!
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| Two big clues in this sign that reveal we are not in the US! |
After breakfast, we had a little time before our tour at the Book of Kells so we headed down toward the river. We stopped at Ha'Penny Bridge and then walked around the Temple Bar area.
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| View of the north side of the river from Ha'Penny Bridge. |
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| A great shot of my Nutter Butter! |
It was then time to head toward Trinity College because we had timed tickets to the Old Library and the Book of Kells. The campus was very historic, of course, and the Old Library was stunning! Most of the books had been removed temporarily in order to work on shelf upkeep of the library. The old wooden shelves and old manuscripts were just so pretty though. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is estimated to have been written around 800 A.D. It has quite a harrowing history that makes its survival quite incredible. It has been housed at Trinity College since the mid 1600s. Photos of the the Book of Kells are not permitted.
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| Trinity College Campus |
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| Trinity College Old Library |
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| The Long Room and Gaia |
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| I just love the details of old libraries. |
After the Book of Kells, we headed to Marsh Library which was founded in 1705 by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh and was the first public library of Ireland. The entrance is quite hidden and unassuming. It could be easily missed. It is still a working public library but patrons must make and appointment to view the books. It houses some of the oldest manuscripts available - about 300 manuscripts from the 12th - 17th centuries and over 25,000 books from the 16th - 18th centuries. I took way too many photos in this library but what can else can be expected from a book lover?! These two libraries were my only requests when I asked to tag along on the trip. Everything else was up to my Nutter Butter.
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| If you look closely at this book, there are small round holes which were created by a literal book worm! |
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| These little Lego figures can be seen in several of the Marsh library photos. They are historical figures created by librarians to teach young visitors about the library. This one is Jonathan Swift. |
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| I just love that so much thought and beauty went into the design of a space to hold books and knowledge! |
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| These stacks original had bars that locked in place (notice the place for the key in this photo). The books would then have chains with rings on the end and the ring was attached to the bar. This was to prevent theft. |
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| I liked how the reader of this book had made notes in the margins - even an elaborate pointing hand and arm! |
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| We signed the guest book! |
Marsh's Library was tucked away off the street just beside St. Patrick's Cathedral. That was our next stop! The cathedral was beautiful and part of the Church of Ireland which has swayed in denomination over the years from Catholic to Anglican to the now Church of Ireland. It's officially the national cathedral of Ireland. Interesting to the English teacher in me, the dean of the cathedral during the first half of the 1700s was Johnathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. It was in the gift shop at the cathedral that my Nutter Butter discovered our family's name as an Irish crest! Interestingly, my oldest had her DNA genetic ancestory done and the Pattersons (Patrick's son) do indeed have some Irish blood along the way!
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| These flags are quite worn and are from various wars that Ireland has been a part of. |
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| This was a staircase just for the organist to get to the actual organ. |
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| Light reflections leaving stained glass patterns on the stone walls. |
We started our walk back to the hotel to rest up a bit and get ready for dinner. On the way back we walked by Christ's Church and Dublin Castle.
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| Christ's Church |
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| Dublin Castle |
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| Most of the streets are like this! |
After resting a bit, we headed to dinner at The Church located on the other side of the river. It is, obviously, a former old church and it has been turned into a restaurant and bar that has live traditional Irish music and dancing. It even still has the original pipes from the pipe organ. Formerly, it was Saint Mary's Church and opened in 1701. The founder of Guiness was actually married in the church. The musicians were very good and we throughly enjoyed watching the dancers. The food was also very good!
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| Potato and leek soup with yummy dense bread! |
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| Vacation is definitely a time for dessert splurging! |
After dinner we perused a few retail stores. Most things close much earlier here though than they do in the US. We made our way back to the hotel to get to bed a little earlier. We had planned an earlier start to the next day!
We got up the next morning and headed to the DART, the local train station. We were headed to the small fishing village of Howth for the experience of walking along the coastal cliffs. Once we arrived in Howth, we took a bus for a short trip to the summit of the cliffs. We learned this trick from reading someone else's blog. We could have hopped on a cliff trail near the train station from the village but the entire trek would have been mostly uphill! Instead, we were dropped off at the summit. To start our cliff walk, we walked down toward Bailey Lighthouse and a view of Dublin Bay. It was an easy walk to the lighthouse because it was all downhill from the summit. However, the walk back up with a little more challenging. Once back to the summit, we started our journey back along the cliff's edge down to the village. It was quite windy at times and we did have a few episodes of rain, but overall, it wasn't too bad and the scenery was stunning!! Very worth it! In my opinion, it was one of the highlights of the trip!
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| Standing near the summit looking down toward the lighthouse. |
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| Something to keep your hair from flying everywhere was a must! |
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| It is difficult to see, but my Nutter Butter is a little speck on that trail of steps around the middle of this photo. It is a stone staircase leading down to the water and a small stone beach area. |
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| A zoomed in view of her on the steps |
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| Walking back up! I opted out of this one because I was carrying my camera backpack during the entire hike which isn't very light. |
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| Down close to the lighthouse area and looking out toward Dublin Bay. |
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| My Nutter Butter snapping a pic of me snapping a pic of the bay. |
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| The shows how far we had come, you can barely see the lighthouse in the distance. And we still have quite a ways to go before making it back to the village. |
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| For some reason, this one area of cliffs was filled with seagulls who obviously spend a lot of time there! |
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| So windy!! |
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| That little speck in front of the island is a sailboat. |
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| A very friendly seagull who seemed to be posing on the edge of a cliff. |
We finally made our way back to Howth village. I loved the pops of color of the boats in the marina among the grey weather background. We were slightly damp, cold, wind blown and hungry. So we found a place for lunch and it was absolutely delicious!! Since we were in a fishing village, we took full advantage and had a wonderfully warm and tasty chowder with a variety of fish in it, some deep fried brie - so, so good - and an entree of hake. It was all so good and incredibly fresh! Afterward, we walked around some local markets and then headed back to the train to make our way back to Dublin.
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| The restaurant we ate in for lunch was in this row of stone buildings. |
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| Deep-fried brie - so, so good! |
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| I don't think I will ever have chowder this fresh again! |
Once we were back in Dublin, we made our way to hotel to dry out and warm up a bit. When we set out again, we made our way the the National Gallery and took in some of their art. We saw Van Gogh, Monet, and Picasso pieces as well as many others. Next, we walked to St. Stephen's Green park. It really reminded me of a smaller version of Central park.
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| It took me a while to figure out that these were their mailboxes. |
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| St. Stephen's Green |
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| One single vine originating from the second townhouse from the left had made it's way across all of the buildings in this row. I couldn't even get them all in one shot. I can only imagine how old the vine is. |
Finally, we headed back toward the main shopping area of town to do some souvenir shopping. We walked around town for quite a bit just taking in the sites. We found a market to have a snack and then took advantage of the ice cream shop next door to the market.
Our time in the city and our trip was coming to an end. I so enjoyed spending this time with my Nutter Butter. I was so proud of the confident and extremely competent traveler she has become!
The next morning we headed to the airport. She went back to Italy and I came back home. 'Til next time Scotland and Ireland! I definitely want to see you again!!
