Our weekend started out with a good English fry up of eggs/bacon/black pudding(congealed pigs blood). Another walk into central Dublin, Temple Bar area and a trip to the Kilmainham Gaol. This jail has so many important ties to Irish history, including the most recent executions of 14 of the leaders of the revolution back in 1916. Others in the jail have since become important political figures and even prime minister. An interesting East Cell that was featured in some movies including "In the Name of the Father".
From the gaol, we walked over to possibly the most important landmark in Dublin - the Guinness Brewery. Deciding not to take the tour, but skip over it to the 7th floor Gravity Bar. A top floor room with a 360 deg panoramic view over the whole city. Needless to say, there were a couple of pints to be had here and it sure does taste better from the source!! Yummy!!!
Sunday we went hiking in the pretty Wicklow Mountains - just south of Dublin. We did about 2000 ft of ascent which, and as we are not in hiking shape, turned out to be rather difficult over interesting open terrain. Our ascent up to the summit of Lugduff was over peat bog interspersed with huge clumps of heather! Somewhat typical of the hiking terrain in Ireland, as well as parts of the British Isles for that matter!! At the start of the trail, there was some old ruins of Glendalough, a place first inhabited by a preist named Kevin in 700AD. He was a recluse but when word of his lifestyle spread, everyone wanted to join him in this scenic area of cliffs and two lakes. Sort of took away from his idea of being a hermit!! Nowadays, there are ruins of a monastery, house, round storage tower, and a cemetery with some very old celtic cross headstones.
Today we went to see the Book of Kells housed at Trinity College. It was written in 800 AD - the four Gospels from the Bible written in Latin decorated with wonderful elaborate illustrations and lettering by a few creative and artistic monks on an island in Scotland. The Book eventually ended up in Ireland when the monks fled from the Vikings years later. We withstood swarms of schoolkids and tourists to catch a glimpse of the "open page of the day". The book is still in fantastic shape. Other artifacts in the long library room included the oldest Irish Harp in existence. Symbolic again as it is the model for the Guinness symbol - oh yeah, it is also on the Irish coins!
We then we headed to Howth, a small fishing village on the coast just north of Dublin. After dodging a couple of rainstorms with stops in a couple of pubs for.....what else, a Guinness, we finally made the hike around the cliffs and a good view of the lighthouse at the end. A trip to buy some salmon off the docks for Wednesday's dinner and home for a rest before an early trip to Galway tomorrow!
M + M
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