Leaving the north for the Republic

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Before leaving Northern Ireland, we did not stop in BELFAST, only getting a tour from the bus; seeing a Queen Victoria statue and the Europa Hotel, the most bombed hotel in Belfast and only a couple of streets. I would have loved to walked around but we only got off the bus for a pit stop. Pity. Next was south to DOWNPATRICK where we saw the grave of St. PATRICK (buried in 461) on Cathedral Hill, DOWN CATHEDRAL and a former jail where we went inside and saw the cells. NEWBRIDGE HOUSE was our last stop getting a guided tour. It was built in the 1740's for the Archbishop of Dublin and still contains most of the original furniture. There was also a courtyard and a farm on the grounds.

Then off to the largest city of Ireland and the capital of the Republic, DUBLIN. We were staying right outside of the city at the Burlington Hotel. This kinda sucked because we had to walk a few blocks to find dinner and go pub crawling; since we opted not to do the 2 Dublin optional excursions because Suzi and Leann had done them before on previous trips. We were told to be careful outside the hotel because of some kind of protest march going on there. Great we had to pass them outside for dinner! We thought it was going to be a big deal with lots of people and ruckus, but we counted like 23 people that walked peacefully down the street. We had pizza at some Italian restaurant and found a pub where we first sat at a booth then found out that if you sit at the bar, there was a better chance of getting hit on! (by a guy) hehe It did work as Suzi and I talked to 2 guys the rest of the night. I also talked to an older guy who showed me his picture with Bill Clinton. When the pub closed they walked with us back to our hotel and were going to hang out with us there but security was pretty tight here and wanted to see their hotel key. We told security they were with us but they wouldn't let them in so we said our goodbyes and that was that.

Friday morning we started with a bus tour of the "Fair City" of Dublin. We passed the sites of Dublin Castle, Temple Bar St. Patrick's Cathedral, Duke of Wellington monument, O'Connell Bridge and Street and past the Clarence Hotel, owned by the lead singer of U2's Bono. We were told quite a few famous people have stayed here: including Madonna and Michael Jackson. We saw some interesting statues like Molly Malone. We visited TRINITY COLLEGE (founded in 1592) and saw the BOOK of KELLS which is 1,200 years old! The manuscript is in one big dark room in different cases to view. It was done by Celtic Monks around AD 800. We saw part of the Old Library before having the afternoon at leisure. We window shopped on one of the most expensive streets in the world, Grafton Street. Somehow we ended up having lunch at a McDonald's that was upstairs and we ate it at the college. I remember us not having ketchup, but then realized that McDonald's fries are usually so good that ketchup isn't needed.

We got picked up by our tour bus and went back to the hotel to get ready to go out for Leann's birthday. We had to get dinner on our own again since we were skipping the dinner and Bay drive excursion. We walked and found a restaurant called Ala Monday. We then walked a few blocks and went to a different pub from the night before. We were there a while and then walked to the pub that we went to the night before. We didn't see the guys from the previous night but still had a decent night.

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Photos

Cathedral
Downpatrick

St Patrick's grave
Downpatrick

St Patrick's Cathedral
Dublin