Ireland Day 14 - Last day in Dublin

Hard to believe this was our last day! We'll try not to get all emotional ;)

I should also note that as I start to type this, it is 12:01am the day we fly home, and our cab to the airport arrives in seven hours, twenty nine minutes~

The morning started with intermittent rain, but our plan all along was to hop from gallery to gallery and have a rather artsy day. You will note a lack of the usual photographs because there is no photo taking allowed in 90% of our stops today, although I managed to sneak one or two. Our first two stops were just around the corner from the hotel at the National Photography Archive followed by the Dublin Gallery of Photography. Between the two we saw a broad spectrum of photographs from early era scenes and portraits to modern collections. The elder photos in the archives were wonderfully artistic from an era that is typically associated with stern faces and posed portraits. The photos in the Gallery of Photography were more modern and the theme in the main display halls was portraiture of the elderly, especially centenarians who's detailed portraits were some of the most emotional works I've ever seen.

Sarah also found herself a new toy; a small cheapo camera that uses old school 35mm b&w film to take half sized (ie two narrow shots per frame) photos that is really neat! Never seen anything like it at home. This is the reason why a lot of the actual photos above are rather goofy today, as I had full control of the digital.

Our next stop was the National Gallery of fine art that is split in to three main sections; the first showcasing famous(?) Irish artists who were not Jack Yeats, the second was a wing dedicated to Jack Yeats, and the final wing housed works from dutch, french and spanish masters and works by Brueghel t.y., Rubens, J.L.David, Vermeer and Rembrandt were of special note. Caravaggio's "The taking of Christ" c.1602 was the star attraction and very imposing at four by six feet+ in size.

The final shop was the museum of archaeology. The museum itself is a wonderful old building, and some pieces we saw have been on display in the museum for over a hundred years! The 'walk' is laid out in such a way that you pass through the entire history of Ireland from paleolithic tools dating back to ~400 000 BC through the bronze and iron ages and early kingdoms, the age of Viking invasion and settlement and through the middle ages. The amount of preserved tools, cloths/shoes, jewellery and even bodies on display dating back some four to six thousand years was jaw dropping. Most artifacts were found either during the excavation of building sites within Dublin city (mainly the viking pieces) or simply happened upon at random from harvesting the peat bogs. Can't imagine cutting peat bricks and pulling up a 5000.yo corpse with gold jewellery and other trappings.

I will spare the details of what we ate and when, but I will note that in the evening we made one last stop for a few at The Temple Bar, namesake of the entire district. We arrived early enough to manage two stools near the stage where two very talented locals duelled guitar against banjo to an increasingly loud crowd. The interior of the bar is just as impressive as its street presence, and by the time we walked by again late at night for some photos you could barely squeeze in the door. I don't believe there are fire codes in Ireland.

We stayed about as long as we could, and as I said we walked the streets after dark a bit before returning to our room to retire for the night, and put the final words to this adventure. I don't expect to post a blog tomorrow so this is the wrap-up I suppose.

Thank you all for reading! We've gotten a lot of feedback and its great to hear from so many friends and family back home. We never really felt homesick because we felt very connected to everyone via the blog and our intermittent ability to check facebook etc. Oh what an age we live in. We would both like to take this opportunity to truly thank you for all your love and support, help and good wishes while we were enjoying this amazing honeymoon!!

See you all very soon~

With love from Sarah & Alex

Go Raibh Maith Agaibh!

Ireland Day 13 - Touring Dublin pt2

I'll skip the boring morning details and start off at our first stop, the Royal Hospital of Kilmainham which has been reborn as the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We peered in to the Frida Khalo exhibit but not being particular fans of her many droll self portraits, we spent the majority of our visit at Philip Taaffe's dizzying collection of mixed print/paint iconographic pieces. I'll spare the OCADU interpretation, but the works were very impressive. We also happened to arrive on the opening day of a collection of master prints which I've always found fascinating, and some works by William Hogarth and Albrecht Durer particularly stood out.

Our second stop wasn't far off, at Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) but seeing as the tour was pricey, lengthy and supposedly very depressing, we decided it not really worth our time since we'd have to cut some other attractions. The outside was impressive though.

The old Jameson distillery was our next stop but along the way I read about a small church that was founded in 1096 and while largely rebuilt above ground, holds ancient crypts below. We were escorted through them by a very eccentric guide who informed us that the limestone structure eliminating moisture combined with the constant temperature year round and underground methane gas source created the perfect conditions for preservation of the coffins and mummification of the deceased. Some wooden coffins that have been there for centuries look as though they are brand new, still glossy from the stain the day they were created. Others were in rough shape as many were simply stacked atop one another and some older ones at the bottom were crushed under the weight of the newer heavier caskets. They ranged in decoration from simple wooden boxes to ornate gold and ivory embellished ordeals. There are six crypts all together and each contains numerous chambers, many owned by families who have been placing loved ones in them for, in some cases, several hundred years and continue to do so even to this day!

I apologize to dwell on this one location for so long but, as morbid as this is, it was one of the things we will remember most about this trip. In one of the chambers we were able to see mummified preserved corpses from caskets that had broken open over the years. One of which was a crusader placed in the crypt over 900 years ago. Not only could we go in and see him up close, but were allowed to lightly touch his hand. Yes, even Sarah did it. It was indescribably amazing. No photography was allowed as these are burial grounds, but Sarah managed one photo of the corridor shown above.

On a lighter note, we finally made it to the Jameson distillery. We took the very campy and cheesy tour which was actually a lot of fun, and it ends with a sample! Also picked up a few souvenirs for myself in the gift shop, although the complete collection of Middleton rare reserve dating from the mid 80s to present at 50 000 euro was a bit out of my price range.

After a quick lunch we made it across town to two places I've been dying to visit; the house of Oscar Wilde and his very impressive statue made of various types of stone and marble to give it even a bit of the colour and presence the man must have shown in real life. A real inspiration to me (Alex that is), it was great to finally walk his footsteps in his home town, after visiting the Left Bank hotel in Paris several years ago, the place where he died in Nov of 1900 . His legendary wit is widely quoted, and aside from my favourites of his many fine one-liners "who, being loved, is poor?" and "no great artist ever sees things as they really are; if he did, he would cease to be an artist" and many more, his final words always made me laugh. On his death bed in the hotel room, he looked up in disgust at the wallpaper that he loathed since the day he arrived and said "My wallpaper and I are fighting a dual to the death. One or the other of us has to go" and then passed away.

There were a few other sights along the way, such as the O'Connell monument commemorating Daniel O'Connell who fought to give Catholics the right to own land and sit in parliament while Ireland was still under British anglican rule and protestant influence, as well as campaign to Irish independence until his death on a pilgrimage to Rome in his early 70s.

See what I mean about there being too much to write about? One small two minute stop can be expounded upon endlessly.

By now it was already nearing 4pm and we hurried to a more fun destination, the Dublin Zoo! The zoo sits in the world's largest inner-city park, Phoenix Park, which is more than twice the size of central park in NYC. It is also one of the oldest zoos in the world still in operation, and we were instantly impressed by the care and aesthetics of the habitats. The star attractions were definitely the snow leopards, orang-utans, gorillas (who are awaiting the completion of their new massive habitat), sea lions and most importantly, asian elephants! Neither Sarah nor myself have ever seen asian elephants before and they put on quite a show eating, kicking and sliding down mounds of peat, drinking and generally being adorable and fascinating all at once.

Our bus pass allowed us to make it back to Temple Bar where we had Nepalese food for dinner in time for the early bird special price, as our last 'fancy' meal of the trip. We are also starting to get tired of standard Irish fare :)

We walked around quite a bit today, especially at the zoo where we had to hurry a bit in order to see everything before they closed at 6pm, and honestly can not wait to get back to YMCA and burn off this vacation! Tomorrow is another exercise day thankfully as the hop on, hop off bus pass expires around noon, so most of the sightseeing will be on foot.

I hear the rain is coming though, but being the bright young minds we are, saved all the major museums and art galleries for last just in case. Although they also said today would rain but we never felt a lick, although it was cloudy until around dinner hour. Fingers crossed!

Ireland Day 12 - Touring Dublin pt1

Today was our first full day of touring Dublin. As in most cities, there is a 'hop on, hop off' bus tour hosted by some very animated drivers, and one of the stops for Temple Bar district is steps from the hotel which is incredibly handy being that the pass is valid for two days and we plan on making good use of it.

We first did 'the loop' and saw all the major sights over about 2hrs. There are far too many to mention here, but the plan is to visit most over the next few days. We stayed on again for another round and got off west of our hotel to explore.

Its hard to sum up exploring the city. Each building has wonderful architecture and there are signs of ancient walls, gates, historic pubs, places where famous persons lived or died etc on every block. Every apartment block has a story, literally, behind it and you could easily spend a year in Dublin learning about every facet of the city.

In the interest of keeping this short (ha ha?) I'll boil it down to major stops. First was Chester Beatty library galleries that house ancient manuscripts of eastern, islamic and christian faiths including fragments of the gospels dating back to the first and second centuries AD. We then passed through Dublin castle which from the outside is a mixture of towers built over 800 years ago and brightly painted stucco walls in greens, blues and yellows. Probably our second longest stop of the day was at Christchurch Cathedral and the catacombs below. There was a lot to see and photograph but it was rather odd that part of the catacombs was turned in to a cafe and gift shop :\

We had lunch at a pub that was famous for something-or-other (its hard to keep track!) before moseying past city hall, the bank of Ireland, the House of Lords and in to Trinity College. The campus is a maze and we did get turned around trying to shortcut through a chemistry building. Our main reason for visiting, though, was the library.

Trinity College library is home to one very important book - the Book of Kells (an illuminated account of the four gospels c.800) which is often considered the most beautiful and important book in the western world and deemed Ireland's greatest national treasure - and one very important collection of books in a gallery that, sadly, we were not allowed to photograph. Google search 'trinity college library long room' for an idea of the immense collection, which includes rare copies of mainly medical, botanical and biological texts dated from the 1700s through the late 19th century, a select few of which rotate on display behind glass. The hall is lined with marble busts of the greatest writers and minds in the western world, from Plato to Jonathan Swift. Standing in the great hall and gazing upon tens of thousands of these ancient texts was truly awe inspiring.

So much so that I even at first failed to notice the harp! That famous harp that is on just about every piece of Irish memorabilia and even on the coins is on display in the great hall, and is the oldest harp in all of Ireland.

While at the far end of campus we had to snap a quick shot at Finn's Hotel which is of great importance to any fans of James Joyce :)

By the time we left it was nearing dinner but a lot of shops close down by 6 so we did some quick shopping along Grafton street which is a beautiful part of town, but most stores here are far too pricey for our coffers (18euro for a bar of soap hmmm).

So we spent the rest of the night in Temple Bar. We found a pub with live music and stayed until we were simply getting too tired from such a long day. Even so, we have a lot more penned in for tomorrow. It was nice not having to set an alarm today, but I think tomorrow we might have need simply to keep on schedule. They say the weather will be much like today; lots of bright sunshine but every few hours, it will rain for about 4minutes ...the weather here is quite odd that way.

Yep this was a long post. Tomorrow will likely be the same! Cheers~

Ireland Day 11 - Arriving in Dublin

Another rainy morning opening to a bright and sunny day~

This day we bid farewell to our car. Luckily for us, the numerous times we brushed the hedges on the narrow roads merely added to the tapestry of fair use and we had no trouble returning her.

Getting from the airport to our hotel, however, proved a challenge. Apparently someone else decided to arrive in Dublin today as well; Barak Obama. As a result, all the streets near our hotel district were shut down to all traffic and in fact the little street our hotel is situated on was even closed to pedestrian traffic.

The streets were absolutely flooded with people, so we didn't bother with much sightseeing. We ate at an amazing burger shop right in the middle of our district, Temple Bar, and spent the better part of the afternoon in our hotel bedroom listening to the speech out our window and watching it on TV, as all the festivities were happening only a few hundred metres up the road. In the topmost photo from today, you can see our hotel with the bright red facade on the lower level and our room window two floors up in the middle.

In the evening, the streets were still insanely busy and even trying to cross town proved a challenge of shuffling little steps and creating meeting spots in the event we would get separated by the crowds. The pubs and restaurants being so full that there was no room to stand let alone sit, we decided the best course of action was to find a local cinema and see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie :)

By the time the movie ended, the sidewalks were less crowded but the institutions were still packed, so we strolled the streets amazed that the edge of the sunset could still be seen even though it was nearly 11pm. There aren't many photos today because, frankly, we couldn't be bothered carrying the camera all evening! Its quite heavy and there is a lot to see over the next three full days of exploration, so we decided it was best to give it a rest for the time being.

Thats all for now! As I said, three more days in Dublin and the morning of the fourth we're flying back with the sun. It seems like the honeymoon is drawing to a close, but as we sit and pour over maps of the city and pick sights we 'must see' it is clear that there is plenty left to do.

Ireland Day 10 - Full Circle

This will be a funny sort of post, and likely short.

Today was long, but relaxing. We woke up early and made good on our promise to utilize the hotel's facilities to get our money's worth. We swam in the pool, sat in the jacuzzi, the steam room and the sauna, stuffed ourselves at the buffet breakfast (no need to lunch!), and Sarah got a massage too! Even made it to mass in town before leaving in the early afternoon.

Our destination was the other side of Ireland. We woke up on one coast and as I type this we're settling in to sleep at the Wicklow Grand Hotel on the other side of the country. Fun fact, it takes a Hyundai Elantra half a tank of gas to make it from one side of the island to the other. Our only stop, and really the only time we took out the camera, was at an open farm/zoo-thingy outside of Athlone, a city that sits at the base of what is essentially a lake in the Muskokas.

The circle is now complete. We spent out first night in the interior of the Wicklow mountains and now we spend our last night with the car in the city of Wicklow, on the coast and base of the mountain ranges. From here its about a half hour drive to the airport to drop off the car, although ... ... Obama arrives tomorrow :( The city shuts down at 2pm for the event, so we plan on being up at 8, and at the airport by 9 and hopefully we can grab one of the last shuttles in to town before all the streets get shut down. Many are already closed, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

We will no doubt make it to the hotel, its just a matter of how long it will take.

The hotel for tonight is fabulous, and cheap being a Sunday. We had roast for dinner at the hotel restaurant for a fraction of the cost of a meal in any touristy town, while listening to a local musician sing and play the sax to a packed house.

All apologies for a triple post today, but we couldn't get the WiFi working in the last few places for some reason. I'm dead tired from writing so thats all for now! Hopefully we can continue to post from Dublin, but we can't quite recall if the hotel is internet friendly. One way or another, though, we will find a way! It will be sad to leave the little car who's done a great job on some very difficult roads, but we're also looking forward to stretching our legs a bit more, or even just spending a relaxing day inside haha

See you all in five days! :)

Ireland Day 9 - Connemara

It seems like we pack a lot in to one day out here...

I forgot to mention that the previous day was nothing but bright sunshine from morning to night. This day, however, started off pouring rain. We decided then instead of exploring Galway, we would head to the second aquarium of our trip! This one was much larger but not quite as impressive, although the girl who worked at the desk was from Bowmanville spending a year working in Ireland. She offered up a lot of good Dublin advice and we have a lot of notes saved in our phones of places to eat and visit, and areas to avoid.

It wasn't long before we reached Connemara county, but it felt like we landed on a different planet. The geography was totally different than anything we've seen so far; low rolling hills of rock, peat bogs and not much else. There were times when we would drive a half hour before seeing a tree. The area is also covered with lakes and with the morning's rainfall, roaring rivers. This is clearly the fishing capitol of the island, as along the way there were numerous signs for victorian castles-turned-pricey fishing resorts.

The story here is clearly the peat. The rivers run almost black, and along the way could be seen numerous peat 'trenches' where machines literally drive down the bog and pull out bricks of almost pure peat. I couldn't help but think of Irish whiskey, as Jameson does mention it proudly uses "Connemara Peat" to fuel its fires.

The towns on the road around the county looked almost Labrador-esque if that makes any sense. Small white cottages, often with thatched roofs, peppered across a very rocky landscape where only a few shrubs and lichen survives. Unlike the green cliffs to the south, here the land seems to gently flow in the sea and massive tidal zones marked every coastline.

We wound our way around en route to the night's destination and made a stop at Kylemore Abbey which Sarah will attest to being the most beautiful place she's ever seen. The abbey sits in a mountain valley where springs from the peaks run clear rivers and waterfalls all around to the lake below. The photos sadly can not do justice to the feeling of standing in the shadow of the building or walking the long path along the lake to the miniature gothic cathedral.

Amazingly enough, the rain let up as we arrived and by the time we were walking the grounds the sun was shining again. Ireland has a way of telling us where to be, and when it rains we've learned to just press on. It was difficult to leave such a beautiful place but we were still a ways off from Westport and they were closing for the day.

The mountain roads back inland and upwards were challenging to drive as sheep thought the narrow roadways a wonderful place to nap. Once again, around every bend was another beautiful photo opportunity but we've started to use the camera less and less because, once again, if we stopped everything we were taken aback by the landscape we would never get anywhere.

We had plenty of time to 'shop' for proper lodging in Westport, and ended up treating ourself a bit. Being Saturday night, the prices jump, but we used our charms on a nice lady behind the counter at a resort/spa and got a room with full access to facilities for far less than they wanted to charge for a dingy room in the city centre. And worry not; we made full use of the leisure zone!