I Love European Doors

Home from Dublin

Monday morning we got up early and were picked up by our authentic Irish cabbie, a darling man who had been in the service and had been to America for training many years ago.

We headed to the airport and checked in. After several fiascoes, we finally arrived home on Wed. afternoon. A  mechanical problem with the plane, a missed connection, windy weather delays and lost luggage. We had a couple extra nights in motels (Dublin and London) and a few more authentic meals while we waited for the next leg home.

I entertained myself by looking for redheads in the airports while we waited.

 This was the cutest redhead I saw.

We spent a good amount of time watching airline personnel peer into their computers. (Red Irish hair.) When we got home, we found a clean house, fresh baked cookies, and chocolates on our pillows with a welcome home note and three sweet girls. Ahhhh.

Lovely Dublin

We visited a few bookstores looking for copies of books by some of Dublin's famous authors. On a walk we found a tiny street art fair and a small floral shop with beautiful wares.

Our last night in Dublin, we ate in a bar that was established in 1886, the same year Husband's great grandparents settled on his farm homestead. We learned from our trip that Europe has age and America has size.

We opted for traditional fish and chips and shepherd's pie.

This bespoke tailor was located across from our hotel.

A tree in the commons area of Trinity College.

Dublin is where Guiness is made. We took a city tour by bus, but since it was rainy and wet, we did not do the Guiness factory tour.

Trinity College-Book of Kells, Old Library

We visited Trinity College in Dublin. This college was established by Queen Elizabeth in the 1500's. Ancient and beautiful. Notice the size of the door in the front gate. The wood part above is huge. See the picture below and note how small the large entrance door set into the wooden entrance looks.

First we visited The Book of Kells exhibit. The Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels of the New Testament, created in a Columban monastery in Britain or Ireland around 800 AD. It is a masterwork of calligraphy and illumination art and is regarded as Ireland's most important national treasure.

Kells photo credit-Wikipedia

After seeing the Kells exhibit, visitors are funneled through THE OLD LIBRARY! As an artist, I appreciate the significance of the Book of Kells, but to me The Old Library is like walking into an early version of Heaven. It was FANTASTIC! This and Mount St. Michele were the two favorite things we saw on our trip. Thousands of old books, old wood, classic construction and details. Heaven.

Dublin

After the soy mission was done on Friday, Husband and I stayed over in Dublin until Monday.

We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. This historic church was built on the site of a well St. Patrick is said to have used to baptize Irish believers. One of the deans of this church was the author Jonathan Swift.

Neat ancient stones dated from as early at 800 AD.  Very old, hand written sermon notes.

St Ann's Church where Bram Stoker (Dracula) was married to his wife, Florence, who was a former girlfriend of Oscar Wilde.

Christ Church Cathedral, which is about 1000 years old, is only a few blocks from St. Patrick's. The  two are so close to each other because in the past one was inside the city wall and the other was outside the city wall.