THE CRUISE - Dublin...

Day Three - Monday, 20th June

The captain had also said we would have to dock early, at the request of the Harbour Authority, so that we wouldn't interfere with local ferry traffic. There was already the early stirring noises of people involved with the port, and after I took the sunrise photos, went back to bed!

From our cabin we could see Dublin Harbour, with the city behind, and the River Liffey, with its bridges. They have the now requisite wheel, and these seem to be popping up everywhere as there was one at Plymouth.

We went ashore after 9.00 and got one of the shuttle buses to the city centre, which took about 25 minutes, and already there was quite a bit of traffic. Dublin appears to be a very busy city, and we passed by Trinity College, and a statue of O'Connell, on O'Connell Street and O'Connell Bridge. Whatever he did he must have been famous as the statue is huge!

The bus driver had pointed out a shop called Kilkenny, and said everything in there was either Irish design and/or Irish made, and these are the things you like to get, actual things made in the country you are in.

Sadly there are the usual street beggars and homeless people, and they seem to park themselves outside the nicest buildings. But, all the ones I've seen don't even have the sense to squat on a pavement on the sunny side of the street!

Hanging out for coffee by this stage, and found a really elegant building, festooned with baskets of purple petunias, and a sign for a coffee shop. When we found it, it was closed, so tried another across the road, called 'Insomnia' and they had good coffee there. 

Grafton Street seems to be the main drag for shops and we looked in a few, with the view to getting Gordon a new pair of shoes to better cope with all the walking.
We did get a pair earlier in the trip, but they haven't proven such a good buy.
We were able to use an ATM and try the card our friend Wendy had given us, and it still had some Euros left on it, but turned out we could only get 20 Euros, as the machine didn't give anything other than twenties, so there mustn't have been enough in there for that. Still, it went towards a nice bottle of wine later in the trip!

Found our way back to the street where the shuttle bus left from, and on the way back saw the National Library of Ireland building. Very grand with a semi-circle of columns at the entrance and quite a substantial stone building. There was also an interesting bridge over the river, which we couldn't work out if it swung open or raised up or what, and in the end decided it probably didn't do either. 


Lunch back on board, as we hadn't seen anywhere that impressed us for a meal in the city, and by then there were so many people about, the streets were very crowded.


As part of our exploration of the ship, later in the afternoon we found a bar called The Glasshouse, and it is set up to display hundreds of bottles of wine,and had a good assortment of tables and chairs, and lounges. The staff in here, and in fact everywhere on the ship, are extremely friendly, and mostly Indian or Pakistani. (?) This bar became our favourite watering hole and we became very friendly with the boys who served us.

(It's very interesting that so many people we spoke to, vented their displeasure with the UK Government over their immigration policy, but they are more than happy to waited on hand and foot by these people on board!!)

There were a couple of announcements calling for certain passengers to contact Reception, and this would happen most days when passengers went ashore. I always thought it shouldn't happen because you have to have your ship card scanned leaving and returning, so I don't know how people could be missed. However, everything was resolved and they obviously found everyone, and we left port on time.
The 'sail away' was cancelled as we had some inclement weather and the decks were wet and dangerous.

Down to the formal dining room, nice soup and then roast meats, and a bottle of Mullygrubber Chardonay, (worth trying, not a bad drop). Then back to the cabin for a night of crosswords, and a good sleep.


Tomorrow, on to Iceland...