In Dublin

We stayed in Ireland the day after our full-day tour of Blarney, Kinsale, and Cobh, as the ship docked the next morning at Dublin. Disappointingly, we only had a short day in Dublin, as we needed to be back on the ship in the early afternoon. Our plans were to take the Royal Caribbean shuttle into downtown Dublin, and then take advantage of one of the city's hop-on hop-off (HOHO, for short) bus tours as a convenient way to experience the core tourist highlights of Dublin in a few hours.

As the shuttle bus snarled its way through Dublin's morning traffic, however, Lynn and I rethought our plan. It was a beautiful day out, and a trip that couldn't have been more than 2 or 3 miles took us at least 30 minutes on the bus. We had little reason to think that the traffic would disperse for the HOHO bus, so we opted instead to arm ourselves with a map or two from Dublin's main tourist office and set out to see as much as we could on foot.

(Map of our walking route.)

From the tourist office, we walked east along Nassau Street and past the grounds of Trinity College. We never did get onto the grounds of the college (e.g. to see the Book of Kells), but the grounds seemed quite lush and expansive. We turned right and wandered through a gate into Merrion Square and Archbishop Ryan Park. The park was set off from the rest of the city by extensive woodlands, making the greenery inside all the more peaceful and relaxing.

Leaving the park, we continued southeast to Fitzwilliams Street, which--unbeknownst to us at the time--is one of the primary examples of Dublin's 18th century Georgian architecture, and, in particular, the many-colored doors of Dublin. My camera had a field day with the doors, and then we turned west and walked along the south side of Fitzwilliam Square and cut through an archway to head towards St. Stephen's Green.

We wandered into the middle of the park, where we saw a musical performance by arbitrary park-goers conducted feverishly by park entertainers. We wandered around the center of the grounds and then past a lake and out the northeast entrance of the Green.

Checking our watches, we still had plenty of time before we were due back on the ship, so we set out west to check out St. Patrick's Cathedral. Along the way, Lynn received a hug from an Irish lass, though I found the premise of strangers hugging strangers a bit... odd. (Call me cynical.) Anyways, we were a bit disappointed that upon reaching the cathedral the main cathedral tower was completely encased in scaffolding. Still, the grounds were delightful and the church mammoth, and we took in as much as we could by walking the full way around the cathedral.

We then headed north and took a short stroll into the courtyard of Dublin Castle. The main tourable parts of the castle were closed to individuals when we got there, so we relaxed in the courtyard a bit before heading up to the River Liffey. We walked along the river a bit, and then cut one block down to walk through the pedestrian-only area of Temple Bar. This is a lively area full of eateries, souvenir stores, and pubs, and I imagine that it's quite the popular hang out for both tourists and young Dubliners after dark.

Completing most of our four-mile loop, we ended up back near Trinity College. We hopped in a taxi cab and headed back to our ship. This was actually an important part of our day as well, as we had an incredibly friendly taxi driver who told us all about various aspects of the city, ranging from the concerts playing there that summer (Eric Clapton was in town when we were there) to the new tunnel that was built to ease access from the city to the airport to a discussion of development along the southern banks of the Liffey in an area that was formerly used for gasworks and only now is worth the cost of decontamination. Enjoy a small selection of pictures from our (half) day in Dublin.