Dublin, Ireland

If you've never been to Ireland...go book yourself a ticket. It's gorgeous. While Prague was our favorite and the most beautiful city, the beauty of Dublin is not in the city itself, it's in the coast, countryside and the mountains just outside the city.

We took a bus from the Dublin airport (word of warning- the Dublin airport is terribly signed and not easy to navigate!) to right near our hotel and this is the view we got...

We got to Dublin pretty late in the evening, so the next morning, we took a bus tour of Malahide Castle and the north coast.

When we got to the castle, a peacock was standing guard.

These are the ruins of the chapel that used to serve the castle, along with the family burial ground.

Here is one of the towers of the castle.

 This is Jason in front of the castle. Even he busted out the long sleeves for Ireland!

Here I am with the expansive castle grounds behind me. 

And here's a good view of the castle. We toured it, but pictures weren't allowed. The same family lived in the castle for about 750 years, up until the late 1970s, when taxes and upkeep got to be too much. A lot of the furnishings we saw were owned by the family and original to the property.

One of the rooms in the castle is covered with stained oak paneling, and in one of the walls there is a spot for a key. Presumably, the paneling can be opened up somehow...and there is plenty of room for compartments because the walls are 6 feet thick. But even though the castle has been state-owned for about 40 years now...they haven't even tried to examine the paneling! I, like my mom, have apparently read too many Nancy Drew books, because the not-knowing and potential unsolved mystery would be too much for me!

On the grounds of the castle, there was a path to the village and along the path, there were pieces of exercise equipment. Here's Jason testing one of them out.

After we left the castle, we finished our bus tour of the coast...it was stunning. This picture is looking out to the Irish Sea.

Here is a view of the Dublin Bay and yes, those are palm trees growing in the foreground.

We visited the Trinity College campus and toured the Long Hall library and saw the Book of Kells. Here I am in the Long Hall library, where they keep books of historic value and teach you about book preservation.

There are thousands of books in here that require extensive upkeep and restoration. Apparently the ink used in many of the older ones will actually destroy the paper because of a chemical reaction and the books need to be treated to prevent this from happening.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the Book of Kells, so I posed with the sign instead. The Book of Kells contains the four gospels and is very ornately illustrated and of course, was written by hand. It's also over 1000 years old and has survived periods of war, fires and various other events.

We took a walk down Grafton Street, which is the famous shopping district in Dublin.

Dublin is also the home of Guinness beer, so we saw and smelled their factory from the tram we took back to our hotel, but we passed on touring it. 

The next morning we had an early flight back to the States, but I had to take one last picture of the Irish countryside before we left.

We had an exciting ride back to the airport- the wheelchair door decided to open while we were on the highway, so the driver had to pull over to get it closed.

Also, getting back into the States is a lot harder than leaving. We went through some form of security 5 times before we boarded the plane: passport check, Irish security, U.S. Customs (now you go through customs before you get back into the States), U.S. luggage security, and a final "have you had your bags with you and under your control since you arrived at the airport" check while we were in the jetway, just steps from getting on the plane.

I was happy to be back on U.S. soil when we landed in Newark, and it was pretty cool to fly past the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Ellis Island before going on to Chicago. 

While this post concludes my city-by-city recap of our trip, I'd be honored if you kept reading my blog! I have a finished piece of furniture to share with you and I want to show you the super cute town we live in, plus anything else that catches my eye, so stay tuned!