On the Friday following Thanksgiving, we decided to tour Dublin. Because we were staying about 35 minutes outside of the city and cars are not allowed in the city before 10:00 am (plus the fact that it was snowing so much and parking is so hard to find), we were advised to take the DART (Dublin's mass transit system) into the city. We picked up the DART in Bray, a cute little village not far from Enniskerry. After surviving a close call on the way there (where Jeff almost ran the car into an extremely old stone wall...thank goodness for the snow covered curb, which allowed us to only bounce off and get traction again), we were on our way to Bray. We found the station, bought our tickets and waited in the coldest train station ever (with the wind blowing so hard). The train was awesome, and really was the quickest means of transportation into the city. While on the train, we passed a ton of little villages and even the sea and I got the following pictures...
We got off at the Pearse Station and came out in downtown Dublin. As you can tell from the train ride pictures, the day was pretty gray, cold and rainy/snowy. Still, we were determined not to let the weather get us down and thanks to a great map of Dublin we borrowed from my awesome friend Jessica, we started to make our way around.
We first ran into a couple of museums, like the National Museum of Ireland and Natural History, which had animals from the region. It was a great place to tour, as well as provided a place for us to get out of the cold and warm up a bit. We also wondered into a really neat art museum, where we could walk around and just looks at Irish art. Some of these art pieces were acquired in the 1700 and 1800s. As an art lover, this was one of the best things we saw that first day in Dublin.
The buildings were so old and had such history to them as well...in fact, here is a picture of the floors in the Natural History Museum. They were original and absolutely gorgeous and, even though I wasn't supposed to, I couldn't help snapping a picture of them!
As we walked along the streets of Dublin, I was so entranced by all the cool architecture and colorful doors. Here are some of the flats we stumbled across along our walking tour of the city.
I love the picture of the yellow door...and I wasn't alone. You could actually buy postcards in the stores with a variety of different colored doors around the city on them. They were called "the doors of Dublin". How neat would it be to actually live in some of these buildings?
Here are pictures of Trinity College, the Yates House and St. Stephens Green...
We eventually found our way to this.....
...Saint Patrick's Cathedral, which was astounding, even from far away! I mean, this church has stood since 1220; I can't even comprehend how long that is and how much history has occurred within the walls of this church. We could not walk fast enough to get through the door. And when we did, this is what we saw...
It was unlike anything I have ever seen in my life...as many of you know, I am not extremely religious. I mean, I certainly believe in God, but I don't feel like I need to go to church to talk to him; I can do that from anywhere. Still, while we were inside of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, I had what I can only describe as a "religious experience"...I wondered away from Jeff and found one of the small prayer chapels. I sat in one of the prayer rooms and just prayed. I prayed that everything that was wrong in our lives would be made right. I prayed for the future. I prayed for a better 2011...then I found myself crying, literally bawling in that small chapel. By the time Jeff found me, I was feeling calm and had gathered myself together again. Still, it was a wonderful experience and one that I will not soon forget.
Here are some more pictures from Saint Patrick's Cathedral...one of a variety of churches we saw in Ireland. This one was really neat because people are actually buried inside the church, like Johnathan Swift and his friend, Stella...
After Saint Patrick's Cathedral, we continued walking and eventually found Dublin Castle, which was the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland until 1922 and now serves as a major government complex. The entire complex consists of gardens, coach house, library and the Royal Chapel, which was the cutest, most ornate little chapel within the Dublin Castle. It was a huge complex and, although we didn't tour the complex, we did get to walk around, take pictures and enjoy!
Although another chapel in Ireland, the Royal Chapel was a great little chapel, with the best detail and most ornate design. It would be perfect for a wedding.
We just kept walking and looking at everything...we must have walked over 5 miles that day. But it was so fun and we saw so many cool buildings, so much history and so many fun people. We walked over the River Liffey and took pictures from the bridge...
We saw the Huguenot Cemetery, which dates back to 1693 and includes the surnames of 239 Huguenots buried there. Although it is not accessible to the public, you can see it through the gate.
We also saw the Dublin City Hall building...
And we finally ended up in the Temple Bar District, with all the taverns and pubs a hopeless drunk could ask for! We were starving from running around the city all day and stopped at Farringtons for a pint and a bite to eat. The people there were great and we met the funniest bartender, who was participating in "Movember" and growing a pretty honcho mustache. He kept trying to get Jeff to participate with him. Maybe next year! But we had some great pub food and Jeff imbibed in some Guinness,m his absolute favorite!
After eating and hanging out in the pub, we were getting tired and started walking back to the train station to grab the DART back to Bray. But, we still managed to snap a couple of pictures on the way back to the Pearse Station (which must have been at least a mile)...we even saw a leprechaun museum...I certainly wasn't going to visit it and strengthen my phobia of midgets! We were outta there really fast!
So much fun on our first full day in the city...but by then end we were cold, wet and tired. Thank goodness we only had to ride the train back to the Bray station and then drive the short way back to the Ritz Carlton...we had so much fun we were excited to go back again on Saturday.
