Bob:

We were up early but our ship had docked at Dublin's harbor already at 2:30 a.m. (It was so gentle we didn't even notice it.) At breakfast we stoked up on carbohydrates and protein for the expected day of walking, after which we got out of the ship and caught the first shuttle bus to town. A young, apparently wealthy Chinese girl sat with us at breakfast and immediately guessed that I had been a college professor, which took me aback. I mean, do I have that engraved on my forehead somewhere?

We were slowed on exiting the ship by some girls dressed as leprechauns (I think!) with whom we all had to have our pictures taken, but we did get off in time to board the first available shuttle at 8:30 a.m. Although the shuttle bus cost $5 per person each way, it turned out to be a good deal because the 4 mile walk it saved was through a really sterile, ugly, industrial section of the harbor that would have been a long, exhausting, and boring walk. Instead, the shuttle bus let us off on the South side of Trinity College.

From Trinity College we commenced making an irregular loop around the river that bisects Dublin's old downtown section. First, though, we payed our respects to the full-sized sculpture of Molly Malone pushing her wheelbarrow through the streets broad and narrow of Dublin and calling "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o".

Monika:

Bob:

We continued across the river and walked down O'Connell Street past a statue of James Joyce to the Dublin Writer's Museum. Since the weather was beautifully clear and sunny with bright blue skies, I decided not to spend our time in a museum although I would have liked to have visited several we found on our walk (Viking life museum and Archeological museum in addition to the Writer's Museum). Instead, we crossed over the street to the beautiful little park next door, where we found a graceful memorial to the folks who were forced to leave Ireland during the long years of British occupation.

Monika:

Bob:

Next we meandered our way back to the river past a small, 1-block Chinatown area (closed because it was Sunday, I think) and a modern, sprawling shopping center spread over several city blocks.

Along the way and for the entire day, really, we kept seeing very pretty small, old buildings here and there, many that had unique architectural features like a stature perched on the side or on the top. I even started noticing the variety of chimney pots that adorned the roofs of many of the older buildings. We also stumbled upon some of the fanciest, and possibly also the most garish, doors I have ever seen. So if you ever get a chance to walk around Dublin in fine weather, make sure to really look around you as you walk because you might be surprised at some of the details of the architecture that most folks, I suspect, miss.

Monika:

Bob:

As we walked westward along the river Liffey, we found a very nice riverwalk on the northern bank and a number of beautiful, graceful bridges. One pedestrian bridge, in particular, appeared to be cast iron painted white, and the frilly latticework of the wrought iron looked like it came from the highpoint of the Victorian age. I was also impressed at the regular sequence of flower baskets every 10 yards or so for several blocks on the riverwalk. I mean, someone has to water, fertilize, and prune all those plants and who pays for that, the city?

Monika:

Bob:

We turned South to see Dublin Castle, which was truly a melange of different architectural styles. Not only that, but parts of the castle had been painted some of the vivid pastel colors that we had found in the "Tidy Towns" of western Ireland when we visited during Wanderung 9. But somebody had painted different parts of the same castle very different pastel colors! And then they left most of it to be weathered gray rock! No accounting for taste I guess. Unfortunately, the castle was closed until 2 p.m., so we continued on our way to a park next to St. Patrick's cathedral.

As elsewhere in Dublin, we found nice sculptures in the park as well as water fountains and pleasant paths and greenswards to wander along. If you bring a lunch, that park would be a perfect place to eat it. Services were being held in the cathedral, so we just photographed the exterior and started to work our way back East along the south bank of the Liffey River.

Monika:

Bob:

By that time it was well past noon, so we stopped for lunch in Shaft's restaurant in the Temple Bar area on the South bank. I had Shepherd's pie plus steamed vegetables, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was the Shepherd's pie excellent, as I might have expected, but the vegetables were al dente rather than being overcooked. Possibly it is my limited exposure to British pub fare, but I certainly would have predicted limp, overcooked vegetables, and the carrots and broccoli that came with my meal were anything but.

Having rested a bit we continued on down the street to several booths set up in a small square. Two of the booths offered books, which were too heavy to cart back home, but one booth offered CDs of Irish folk music, which was just what I had been looking for. But the selection of performers was huge and I didn't know any of them, so how was I to decide which ones to purchase? In the end I chatted up a young Irish couple who were also looking at them, and they advised me to to purchase a 3-CD set of Foster and Allen, a 2-CD set of the "best of" The Fureys, and also to find CDs by Christy Moore, which the vendor unfortunately did not stock.

Monika:

Bob:

So 30 Euros poorer but very happy to have the CDs, I continued walking to the main train station across from the imposing edifice of the Custom House and then curled back to the North side of Trinity College where our bus driver had indicated the shuttle stop would be. But we couldn't find it, so I started up the GPS and typed in "Kildare Street", by which method I found that Kildare Street was actually on the South side of Trinity College. The rather poor, monochrome map that Princess had provided us with did not have Kildare Street on it at all, so if I had not had the GPS we would have been up the creek without a paddle.

Other folks in line told me that they had asked policemen or just wandered around the general area until they found the shuttle stop, but that type of confusion could quite possibly cause someone to miss the shuttle to get back to the ship in time for departure. We thought it was very poor materials (bad map) and planning (a single overworked shore representative) on Princess's part. In particular, the maps compared very poorly with what Costa Cruise line had offered just the week before on our Baltic cruise, and we saw much better tourist-type maps of the downtown area that certainly would not have been too expensive to provide. Costa had also provided clearly marked shuttle stops in town with at least 2 Costa personnel at the stop to facilitate loading and unloading the chartered busses.

Monika:

Bob:

Still, we returned to the ship in plenty of time to see a late afternoon performance of the "Gaels Afloat Show" in the ship's theater. The show featured Irish folk songs and Riverdance-style Irish dancing. Very impressive indeed and a great way to close out our visit to Dublin.

Monika: