Dublin

Today we went  on a panoramic city tour of Dublin.  The city is small, and there is a lot of traffic especially as we left the ship at 8:30 and it took only about

ten minutes to get to the city from the port so we were right in the rush hour.  Add to that the roadworks for a new tramline connection it was all a bit chaotic - I am sure we went round in circles. I swear we spent the first hour in a traffic jam.

Our first proper stop was St Patrick's Cathedral, but only to view it from the outside. 

Then we headed out to Phoenix Park, which was a no goer as that was not accessible so the coach turned around and went back into the traffic of the city to enable us to go to Trinity college Library to see the Book of Kells. 

The queue for that was a bit off putting but it moved really fast. The exhibition was good and we saw two of the books, one on a page of text, the other on a page of illuminations. They are in amazing condition considering they date from the ninth century. 

Then we went upstairs to the Long Room of the old library and this was fantastic. It is called the Long room as it is over sixty metres long and is full of dusty old leather bound volumes from floor to really high ceiling. 

I wouldn't say I was disappointed with Dublin but it is not what I expected. I think I expected it to have a grandeur about it, like Edinburgh, but it doesn't.  It is a small crowded city with narrow streets without any sort of plan to.  All signs are bilingual which I did expect.