Dublin

We breakfasted downstairs this morning in our hotel's restaurant (nooo, not where you're thinking). It was a full Irish breakfast, and we sat listening to Radio Dublin, once again spellbound. Dad almost choked on his black pudding when one travel ad asked, "how would you like to have a white Christmas this year, instead of the usual grey one?" He'd just recovered from that bout of laughter when the coloured lights above our table were mysteriously switched on, and we ate the rest of our breakfast seated in our own, personal disco. T'was never explained, but it made our morning's entertainment.

We set off mid-morning through the bus-choked streets of Dublin, bound for Trinity College, which is nicknamed "the biggest traffic-island in Europe" among the locals. Dublin's traffic provids a number of puzzles. First of all, that the "green man" on traffic lights can seemingly be delayed by as much as 5 minutes after the traffic stops, and is therefore ignored without exception by the locals. Pedestrian crossings work on a "majority rules" basis, and you can really surprise a driver by stopping at the curb, instead of plunging out in front of them.

The other thing mum and I were delighted to find was a statuette of Jesus standing on a median strip, without plaque or explanation. Judging by his position, however...


..."blessed be this taxi stand", apparently.

Anyhow - Trinity college is very impressive in itself, but the real reason we were there was to see the Book of Kells, the famous illuminated manuscript. The exhibition that leads up to the actual book is one of the best I've ever seen. It was a lengthy explanation of how the books were made, from the stretching of the vellum, to the pigments used, to the cutting of the quills and bookbinding techniques. The clever thing is that despite having very few actual artefacts, the display is engrossing. I spent a long time watching the video footage of a calligrapher at work.

Eventually you are channelled up a short staircase (winged by several security guards), into a small, dark room, where two of the volumes of the book of Kells are displayed in a case topped with inch-thick glass. In the half-light you can only squint owlishly at the text, and the elaborate animals and patterns that have been coiled around the letters - I suppose magnifying glasses would be impractical to provide, but they would've come in handy. I was amazed by the level of detail shwon in the enlarged reproductions in the preceding display - but when you see the actual size the illustrations were produced at, it's jawdropping.

Also jawdropping (to me) was the room you exit into, above - the "long gallery", Trinity Library's hall of ooold books. Currently there's a restoration project going on, where people-who-do-what-I-want-to-do are re-gluing pages of centuries-old botany textbooks back into their bindings - there are hundreds of books sitting on the shelves waiting for the treatment, tied up with cotton tape. I was amazed to read that the restoration of just one book costs £50. That's $125 in my home currency... seems incredible, but perhaps they're quoting part of a conservator's earnings into the deal? At any rate, it was an incredible library - both the books and the oak-panelled room.

We left Trinity, and had lunch in the cafe at the National Gallery of Ireland; carrot soup. Uncultured-ly enough, we decided the exhibitions on display there sounded dull... but we settled instead upon the museum of archaeology, down the road. That proved fascinating even to Pip, who doesn't usually hold with "all that historical stuff" - it was really cool when she showed an interest (and even put up with me telling her things lecturing her about neolithic pottery). We looked at burial finds from the Hill of Tara, and countless gold torcs that have been dug up all over the country - literally hundreds. Particularly interesting were the displays of bog bodies in a side room. I'll readily admit that there's a morbid fascination involved with looking at bog-people; but there's actual information content provided here, too, so I don't feel too badly. The archaeologists' best guess is that many of these bodies belonged to competitors vying to become Irish Kings. Err - the unlucky ones, that is. Amazing to see what has survived in peat bogs; later on, there were cabinets full of clothing from the 1500s and 1600s which has been preserved so well it looks like it's only spent a week or so in a modern rubbish skip.

Before closing-time, we also rushed through the "treasury", which displayed a lot of Celtic and Germanic jewelry. The Tara brooch, for example, which is the epitome of elegance. I started wondering whether I might like to specialise in Germanic history at uni... not only is it intriguing, but it covers a LOT of different countries.

At last we set out to our hotel once more. We stopped in Temple Bar for a look, but Nigel had been very firm that we shouldn't buy a drink there. Well, we took his advice! There was an accordion player on one corner, and lots of people walking the footpaths in the disappearing light. We kept on our way, back along O'Connell Street, past the extremely tall "Spire" (never did find out what it's dedicated to). We also passed a Catholic supplies shop, which fascinated mum and I enough to go in. Weeeell... the prints were interesting, but in spite of myself, I was overcome by religious culture-shock. When I saw a book entitled "what every girl should know about fertility", I got the huff and went out again. Presumably the answer is "as little as possible".

Back in our hotel room, which overlooked the street, Pip and I heard hoardes of football fans honking car horns and playing trumpets. There was a huge game being held not far away between Ireland and Poland, and the fans lined the streets. On our way back out towards dinner, we were four of about ten people walking the opposite direction to the football crowds...

Dinner for me was a gigantic bowl of traditional Irish stew at Finnigan's pub. By the time we'd finished our meals, the football was over, and hoardes of subdued Irish fans were trailing back home past us on the street. It was painfully obvious which country had won the match, and I was amused to hear one snippet of passing conversation: "I don't buy into conspiracy theories, but..."

Mum, Pip and I stopped by an internet cafe on the way back to the hotel, and we were all in bed by about 10 pm. We were "serenaded" to sleep by the Polish fans' horns...

(I do apologise, to Rene in particular - a day spent in museums doesn't yield many photos).