Ireland Part 7

We arrived in Dublin by train, Tuesday morning.  

 Next to the River Liffy is the "The Famine" sculpture.

 The figures are haunting and sad.

 A typical Dublin side street.  Dublin is pretty with its old low rise buildings.

Pedestrian streets are great!  This is close to our hotel, the Kelly Hotel, which we adored.

 We got a little fix of street art!

 

It was tough to resist all the bakery treats!

The National Museum rotunda.  This museum has the finest collection of Bronze and Iron Age gold artifacts in the world.  Many of the artifacts were found preserved in peat bogs. 

A small sample what was discovered in the bogs.

 Around the corner is the Natural History Museum, or "Dead Zoo".  This is the fossil of an extinct Irish deer, the largest deer the world has ever known. It was also found in a bog.

 We walked way out to the Museum of Modern Art, but were generally disappointed by the conceptual installations of pulsing lights and cow manure.  All the public museums in Ireland are free!

 We had fish and chips at this typical pub.  Yummy!

 An amazing amount of Guiness is consumed each night.  This is a typical pub morning delivery.

 I liked this quote in a store window.

Wednesday morning, we headed for Trinity College.

This is the main courtyard where we waited for our tour to begin.  Our tour guide was a witty young college student who had interesting stories of building collapses and a shootout between some partying students and the college disciplinarian back in the 1700's, resulting in the death of the administrator.

 Our tour included the Old Library, full of ancient texts.  This is The Long Room.

 The stacks are very high.

The Long Room also houses an Irish icon, one of the oldest harps in Ireland, dating back to the 1400's.
The most famous library exhibit is The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript dating back to around 800 AD.

 A celebratory wall hanging.

 We had a great time at O'Neill Pub (left side) on Wednesday evening.  There was a great music duo, no cover charge, and no pressure to drink.  We went in and out of other pubs that were packed, especially in Temple Bar.

 We walked by Christ Church Cathedral on the way to the Museum of Modern Art.

 Nice bridge!

 An interesting store front on our walk.

We look forward to coming back again to this great city!  We are getting close to the end of our trip, just three more days left.