Dublin Day 2

We took a bus tour of downtown Dublin which was a great way to see all the highlights of the city. We started on O'Connell Street and saw many historic buildings and monuments. This is 'The spire" built in 2003.

The smallest pub in Europe, I believe.

After getting an overview of the city we went back to a few places that we really were interested in learning more about. The top place on my list was Trinity College where "The Book of the Kells" is housed. It also has the Old Library in the Long Room where they house 200,000 of the oldest books from Ireland. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside. It is a surreal feeling to be looking at a book that was written over 1000 years ago and to see the extreme care and artistry that went into every detail of the book. The boys were fascinated by the making of the ink and afterwards kept asking for calligraphy pens so that they could try making fancy letters. Ummm...do they have calligraphy lessons for kids? The power to feel the pages and the artwork was overwhelming for me and I wonder why I felt such a need to touch them. Maybe I wanted the connection of trying to feel what these monks must have felt while writing the words of the gospels with such reverence.

We walked through St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park with lots of running places for the kids. It was a little chilly.

Then we took a walk through the "Dead Zoo" or otherwise named the Natural History Museum. The kids loved looking at the smallest bird to the biggest whale. It was pretty impressive to see all these animals in one place.

After a full day we returned back to our B&B exhausted but thoroughly enjoyed our day sightseeing.