Becki and Nanci’s European Adventure

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Today we had a breakfast time at 7:30 for a Hotel Breakfast Buffet. The buffet consisted of eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, baked beans, blood pudding, potatoes, a variety of cheeses, cold, cuts, fruit, cereal, porridge, yogurt, and cold cereals. there was something for everyone! I did have to laugh at the “luxury” granola!!

Our new watch phase of this trip is on and gone. What that means is we were to be on the bus and pulling out at the designated time each day. So if the time was 8:30 the bus would pull out at 8:30 not 8:31!

Today we were joined by a local guide for a tour around Dublin. She was a good guide, and very funny, but it seemed everything she pointed out, was on the right side of the bus… Of course I was on the left. You just can’t take pictures across a bus! I think for the entire time she was on our bus everything worth noting was on the right!!

Our first stop, was St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The present building dates to 1220. It has survive, wars, revolutions, and a reformation. It is not Catholic but a part of the Anglican church. It is named after Ireland’s most famous Saint who wasn’t even Irish!

Music has been so important to St. Patrick’s Cathedral ever since it’s found founding in 1191. A Choir school was founded in 1492 and has been in almost continuous operation since that time. It is a means to train the choristers who have to audition in order to study at the school. It also gives them opportunities for public performances. The choir school is directly across from the cathedral.

Jonathan Swift (Gullivers Travels) is the most famous dean ever associated with St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He did so much to help the disadvantaged living in society. He preached many sermons dealing with social injustice. He is buried at Saint Patricks, alongside his longtime love interest, and former student, Ester Johnson, whom he called Stella. He even wrote a book A Journal to Stella, which was published after his death. It is believed they were secretly married.

We Left Saint Pats and continued our tour around Dublin. Dublin is known for its many colored doors. Our guide told us a couple stories that might explain why the doors are painted bright colors. The first story was after the death of Queen Victoria’s be loved husband., She ordered that all doors in Dublin be painted black. Because she was so unpopular, the rebellious Dubliners refused and turn their front doors into a myriad of bright colors.

Another story is that when the men stumble home after a night in the pubs, they might mistakenly stumble into the wrong house. The women of the town painted their doors all different colors, so there was no way the men could end up in the wrong house. This was also prevent him from ending up with the wrong woman!

Neither of these stories have been found to be true, but they do make for a great story about the brightly colored doors of Dublin, a tradition which continues today.

The most photographed door in Dublin is at 46 Fitzwilliam Square it is black and white, quite fancy, in Edwardian style, and installed in 1907. It remains the same today.

Following our tour of Dublin, we headed out of the city to Glendalough, a former monastery, founded in the 6th Century by one of Ireland’s most revered Saints, Saint Kevin. Several of the building survived today and are in remarkable shape. There are extremely old graves, the oldest I could read was in the 1700s. There are also more modern graves, some as late as the 1900s. Probably met one of the most remarkable structures was a large Celtic cross from the 700s! It was an amazing place!

From Glendalough we headed back to the hotel to prepare for dinner. Tonight‘s dinner was a special surprise as we were going to Taylor’s pub for a night of Irish dancing and singing. We were joined by several other bus groups, and what a night of fun it was! One of the singers was Rob Vickers who was Jean Valjean in London’s West End production of Les Miserables. The show was very entertaining and had a lot of audience participation, outstanding music, unbelievable, dancing, and a few jokes on the side.

We had a great time, but was surely tired when we returned to the hotel

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