Dublin 05/28/14

What a great day we had in Dublin! Ate breakfast at 7:45 and then headed out at 9 am to Trinity College the oldest college in Ireland.  They equate this college with Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Cambridge.  On the way there we got a bit of a city tour seeing the doors of Dublin and a few other sites.

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After arriving at the college we were given a tour and some history about the campus from one of the professors

Then our tour guide Mary took us to the Old Library that has over 200,000 books and housed inside there is the Book of Kells - a 9th-century gospel manuscript famous throughout the world. No pictures were allowed of the Book of Kells.  We also saw the oldest harp in Ireland it is made of oak and willow with 29 brass strings.  It is the model for the emblem of Ireland.

 The ceiling of the Old Library

 The Harp!

After leaving Trinity College we headed to the Guinness Storehouse.  Very interesting tour about the beginning and the changes to modern day technology.  Michael especially like the fact that they employed 18 cats to keep the rats away in the early years. However all any of us were interested in was where could we eat.

 We found the food!!!!  LOL

After leaving there we headed back to the Trinity College area to shop and we decided to look for ice cream and found Muphy's Handmade in Dingle Ice cream shop made with the milk from the rare Kerry Cows. Very good!!!

Back to the hotel to relax to freshen up for our canal dinner cruise on a barge down the grand canal complete with entertainment and singing.

This is how the men relax!!! LOL

Our barge for the dinner cruise!

Going through one of the five locks!

 Under one of the bridges!

The Google Europe Building!

  Off to Killarney tomorrow....stay tuned!