Dublin

We departed Phoenix on Friday June 21st at 11 a.m. and had a 3hour flight to Chicago that felt close to 20 hours, despite booking in advance we each remained seated in the middle seat. We then hopped on board Aer Lingus en route to Dublin which was a relaxing and comfortable overnight flight that flew into the darkness as we left the United States and as we approached Europe we left the darkness into the serene bright light of Saturday morning sunrise. We made it

Dublin’s airport was amazingly easy to navigate and had very hospitable services for our convenience. We dropped off our luggage at a left luggage greencap lot where they locker your bags and hopped on a double decker bus and got a ride to the city which was barely 20 min away.

Christchurch Cathedral is the oldest structure in Dublin founded in 1028. The entrance contains the tomb of Strongbow, the Norman leader who captured Dublin in 1170. In one of the chapels an iron box is mounted on the wall and until just recent it held the preserved heart of St. Laurence O’toole, patron saint of Dublin. The heart was thought to be stolen by a gang, no sign of its return yet.

Trinity College was founded on March 13^th, 1592 and contains the Trinity College Library which is the largest library in Ireland. It is also the permanent home to the famous Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a manuscript in Latin created by Celtic Monks sometime around 800 A.D. which contains the four gospels of the new testament.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the national cathedral of Ireland which was founded in 1191, it houses Jonathan Swift’s remains who is the author of Gulliver’s Travels. The courtyard was a quiet calm area a safe haven to just sit down and relax in the heart of Dublin sitting next to this giant Cathedral Tower.

The Old Jameson Distillery was founded in 1780 right on Bow Street. The top Irish Whiskey and original triple distilled whiskey. The tour showed us each step along the way from harvesting to packaging this fine whiskey in the original 1780 building, the whiskey is no longer made here but the factory and the tools used to make this fine whiskey still remain. Nick was also selected to participate in a whiskey challenge comparing Jameson against a doubled distilled Johnnie Walker and a single distilled Jack Daniels. Jameson Won.

Temple Bar is an area with lots of bars and restaurants located right along the canal in between the main street which is Dame street. This area has not been updated and its streets are tight cobblestone walkways and roads that shoot in an out of every building winding around this entire area. We completed our experience with a sample of genuine Guinness, Harp, and Smithwicks beer accompanying our delicious bangers and mash.