Friday May 6th: Day 2 in Dublin, Ireland
Bob: We had sunshine during breakfast, so I was anxious to re-take some of the pictures I had taken from the Hop On Hop Off bus the previous day under better conditions. We got a slightly earlier start and ended up in downtown Dublin around 10:30, so I stopped off at the Tourist Information boutique next to the bus stop and collected booklets on walking in Ireland. The lady at the counter surprised me by saying that the number 1 reason people come to Ireland was to walk its trails (second only to playing golf!). Who knew? We once again boarded the red Hop On Hop Off bus to circulate around the town. We proceeded down O'Connell Street across the Liffey and past the Customs House and Trinity College, but this time we disembarked as soon as we reached the stop for Christchurch Cathedral as we had not seen that the previous day and wanted to take it in. Christchurch Cathedral is a bit odd in that it is attached to the old Synod Hall across a broad street by an old stone covered bridge, complete with stained glass windows! That building now housed a tourist attraction called "Dublina" that recounted the story of the Viking and subsequent Medieval phases of Dublin's history. We had seen signs for Dublina on our previous trip to Dublin during Wanderung 9, but had not had a chance to visit it, so we were glad to get the opportunity to do so with Lois. |
Monika: We had another day of beautiful sunshine, a two-day ticket for the HoHo bus, and several more places we wanted to see in Dublin. So after breakfast we went over to the bus stop and caught the next bus into Dublin. I insisted we sit on top since I just love watching the town roll by. We paid special attention to the airport stop, since tomorrow we would have to navigate the area by rental car. We did figure out where to return it and that was a great plus. Once downtown, we first stopped at the tourist information but then headed for the HoHo bus stop. We had decided that our first stop would be Christchurch, the Cathedral that lies just inside the old Dublin boundaries. St. Patrick's Cathedral lays just outside as non-English people were not allowed within the city boundaries in the old days. Attached to Christchurch by a walkway across a street is the old Synod Hall that now houses the Dublina Museum, a museum dedicated to the history of Dublin from the Vikings to the present. |
Bob: The lowest floor focused on the Viking settlement of Dublin from the 800s until the Norman invasion of 1170. Right at the entrance, in fact, was a fairly accurate reconstruction of parts of the front and rear sections of a Viking longship, complete with a fully equipped Viking warrior at the helm! |
Monika: Each floor of the museum was focused on a specific time period starting with the Viking area on the ground floor. There we were greeted by a recreation of a longship plus fierce Viking warrior. Picture Time! |
Bob: The exhibits inside, however, although less imposing, were equally interesting and quite informative. They gave, I thought, a rather fair presentation of both the positive side of the Vikings (brave, adventurous, ambitious) and the negative side of the Vikings (warlike, cruel and ruthless). The balance between trade and warfare in the Viking explorations was covered as well as their exploits in reaching the North American continent to the West and Russia and Constantinople to the East and South. Amazing, really. Different dioramas showed different aspects of Viking life including their weaponry, lifestyles, and trade goods. The Viking age ended when one of the Celtic chieftains, I believe, invited the Normans over to invade Ireland around 1170 so that he could get his lands back. |
Monika: Inside were life size dioramas of what everyday life in a Viking village may have looked like complete with sounds and smell. They also showed the extent of trade and warfare that the Vikings engaged in. Altogether I enjoyed the information and the dioramas that really brought things to life. |
Bob: The Normans only stayed about 3 years before they were replaced by an English takeover spearheaded by King Edward II in 1173, but during that short tenure they began work on the huge Dublin Castle in the typical Norman manner: thick, high walls of stone. The English, apparently knowing a good idea when they saw one, finished the building of the castle and it continued in use for over 700 years, although at the end it served as a ceremonial seat of power rather than any kind of real defensive fortification. Second floor of Dublin was devoted to medieval Dublin, from the onset of the English occupation to the dissolution of the monasteries and abbeys by Henry VIII in 1540 or so. The one curious fact I learned was that Dublin was for that entire period essentially an English city on Irish soil. Although the Irish Chieftains at various points controlled the countryside of Ireland and threatened the city, it was never taken. Conversely, Irish folks were generally not allowed in the city, so it remained a bastion of the English occupation. |
Monika: One floor up we learned that the Normans had ended the Viking era but did not stay too long, instead the English came and created an English medieval city. A fair had been set up with different booths you would find at such an affair, like a scribe to write anything you needed written, an apothecary to cure you of any ills, and dancing bears for entertainment. Quite impressive! |
Bob: Life in medieval Dublin was described vividly, from the effects of the plague to the lack of sanitation, clean water, and basic hygiene that made life "nasty, brutish, and short". They even mentioned that the universal habit of carrying daggers contributed to the carnage by adding death by violence to the mix. Illiteracy was the rule and superstition reigned, but at least skilled trades were developing along with a nascent middle class, and some forms of art and music were developed, so it was not a total cultural vacuum. |
Monika: One exhibit I just could not take was a rather detailed explanation of how the plague affected this city. I just went through and looked at the exhibits of everyday life. |
Bob: Nevertheless, the take-home message was that we can all be heartily grateful to live in our more modern age despite its set of novel disadvantages and dangers. It was with some relief that we finished the exhibits and returned not just to the 21st Century, but to the modern world in the form of a tea room in the top floor of Dublina where we had sandwiches while bathed in the light of a very nice modern (1993) stained glass piece that had been built to perfectly fit the old church-style Gothic window frame of the Synod Hall. The window used Grissaile for face and hair details, but also incorporated very nice line drawings to depict the scene of modern Dublin and patterns sandblasted into flashed glass for accent elements such as stars. Nice to know some folks can still execute high quality stained glass artwork. After lunch we walked across that stone hallway I had seen earlier into Christchurch Cathedral. Although obviously quite old, the hallway over the street felt quite sturdy, which was a relief. I enjoyed the patterns in the stained glass panels set into the window spaces along the sides of the old pedestrian overpass. |
Monika: We finally reached the top floor, where we found a nice little tea room. Since by now we were ready for some food, Lois had the soup with brown bread and Bob and I each had a sandwich. Since this was part of old Synod Hall there were beautiful stained glass windows and gave our lunch a rather interesting atmosphere. After lunch it was time to see Christchurch. We had admired the stone walkway from the outside now it was time to trust it to take us safely across. Again there were beautiful stained glass windows all along the walkway. |
Bob: Christchurch Cathedral also had wonderful stained glass pieces, of course, fabulous scenes from the old and new testament but noticeably less emphasis on the life of St. Patrick! We were all a bit confused about when Christchurch Cathedral had been Roman Catholic and when it had been Anglican, but clearly at present it is an Anglican Cathedral. |
Monika: Christchurch cathedral was a beautiful Gothic church with stained glass windows and a classic old pipe organ. I just wandered around and enjoyed it all. It seems to be larger and loftier than St. Patrick's Cathedral which to me has a more intimate feel, if you can consider any cathedral intimate. |
Bob: Underneath the church is an old crypt, most of which had been turned into a museum. One branch, curiously enough, had been turned into the "Foxy Friar" restaurant and gift store. Personally, I don't think I would care to dine in the ambiance of dead bodies, but apparently the restaurant does a booming business. I am trying my best to avoid saying, but cannot help myself, that people are literally "dying to get in"! Ahem. The rest of the crypt served as a miniature museum with the treasures of Christchurch Cathedral on display. Large, ornate silver and gold-plated platters and chalices were in glass cases, but I find I have little interest in such things. Some of the old graves apparently dated back to the Norman times and they, as well as some of the more recent and much more elaborate graves, were interesting. A 13-minute video on the history of Christchurch should have been shown, but we could not find any way to activate the TV console set over in one corner of the crypt. I prayed to the TV god, but unlike my earlier prayer to the bridge god when we were driving in the Connemara mountains, there was no positive response. Oh well. |
Monika: We did go down to the crypt. Besides the graves from different times, there was an exhibit of the ornate garbs and sacramental chalices etc. - no photography, of course. There was supposedly also a restaurant and gift shop called "The Foxy Friar" but we did not find it. |
Bob: From Christchurch we walked uphill to Dublin Castle, and decided this time to take a tour of it with about 30 other people. The docent giving the tour spoke with a clear, and beautifully enunciated and projected voice that we could all hear without any form of amplification even in the open courtyard. That bespoke a trained voice, I think, or at the very least elocution lessons, which is very rare in this day and age. The first section of the tour was the state rooms, and they were very pretty. The first room was the lady's withdrawing room, which was furnished in a fancy, elaborately decorated fashion that reminded me of French decoration of palaces like Versailles. The fate of the ladies attending the all-night balls given there, however, sounded rather dull and dire, particularly if they were not asked to dance by a male and had to spend the entire evening standing up against the wall. |
Monika: Our next stop was Dublin castle. We enjoyed seeing this fascinating building on our last visit to Ireland. It was completed over several centuries and embraces a lot of different styles so that its nickname has become "the Irish Stew". Lois had not seen it, so it was a must. It was just a few blocks from Christchurch so we decided to walk up the hill. The next tour was in 20 minutes and since we had not seen the inside of the castle either, we all decided that was worth it. The tour started with the staterooms, and they were indeed very ornate. |
Bob: The throne room contained a plush red seat under a heavily carved, gilded canopy, but the chair was remarkably short for the height of the back, so it looked a bit stunted. It turns out that the throne had had its feet cut down to fit Queen Victoria when she visited in the 1800s. I was also surprised that the Irish government had not removed the Scottish unicorn or the English lion at the top of the canopy that held the harp of Ireland in their paws. The portrait gallery had a wall of portraits of English governors and Irish presidents on three walls, but a nice set of mirrors on the wall with windows. The mirrors were convex, however, something like fun house mirrors for some obscure reason. The final room was a ballroom in blue and gold that was being refurbished for the upcoming state visit of Queen Elizabeth II, which we saw on TV a couple weeks later. |
Monika: There were more fancy rooms with beautiful chandeliers and mirrors. Even the hallways were ornate. There also were portraits of the English governors and the Irish presidents. |
Bob: Packing for the trip home that evening was both difficult and rather depressing. Difficult because we had steadily accumulated brochures, souvenirs, and assorted knickknacks along the way and we had to fit it all in somehow. Thank goodness we had jettisoned many of the books we had brought with on the trip, and also at the end we jettisoned anything we could purchase back at home like the mouthwash, water bottles, and suchlike. Even with all that removed, it was nip and tuck to get it into the luggage even with an extra backpack crammed full. |
Monika: After touring the "upstairs" our docent took us downstairs to see what was below the castle. This was a creek that wound its way to the Liffey, giving the inhabitants of the castle an escape route if one was needed. The tour ended, of course, in the gift shop, where armors minus the knights guarded the entrance. Once out of the castle, we caught the last HoHo bus and were rewarded with a wonderful driver who had a wicked sense of humor. The last half of the round trip, that we had taken already several times, suddenly became interesting again because you never knew what would be coming up, like this little joke: "Ireland is thinking of changing over to right hand driving..." (all Americans applauded, of course), then a pause, "They are thinking of first trying to have only the lorries and buses switch!" ... oh well Finally, we did have to get out to catch the bus back to hotel. On the way, we saw a grocery store that offered sandwiches. They were being prepared to order right there. We first thought of getting on each, but when we saw the size of Bob's we decided two of those would do very nicely for the three of us Back at the hotel it was packing time, always an unpleasant affair and with all the stuff we picked up a difficult one. But we managed to get it into two suitcases and two backpacks, I figured we would check the heavy one and use only the light one as carry-on. We were ready for the next day. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Map of Drive in Ireland | Epilog |
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