Last night Jojo didn’t cough so much but unfortunately he was up restless for most of the night. I on the other hand slept soundly from midnight until 8:00. Either way, today was our last day in Dublin and we wanted to make the most of it.
After showers and shaves we stopped in at the same cafe as yesterday for a latte/tea and a fresh croissant. This is always a good way to start the day!! 😁
First item on the agenda was to head to Heuston Station to collect our train tickets for tomorrow’s trip to Dingle. This was probably a little over-cautious, but I have burned myself once before in Scotland and didn’t want to get caught again early in the morning with tickets for the wrong day!!🤪 Our passes for the Hop-On-Hop-Off tour yesterday were valid for 24 hours so we hopped on for about five or six stops and hopped off at the train station - Free!!! No problems collecting the tickets, so we are good to go tomorrow morning at 7:00 am.
Next stop for today was Glasnevin Cemetery. We had to take the DART and then transferred over to a city bus. When we got on the city bus we didn’t have enough change and we found out bills are not accepted. 😡 A very kind local must have seen our disappointment and kindly offered to pay our fares for us. Wow!!! He wouldn’t even accept our cash in return. It was very kind of him, and I hope he is blessed with good fortune in return!! Glasnevin Cemetery is a large cemetery (124 acres, 1.5 million interments) in the Glasnevin neighbourhood of Dublin, with several notable people resting there. The most notable was probably Michael Collins. Michael Collins was an Irish revolutionary, soldier, and politician, who was a leading figure in the early 20th century struggle for Irish independence. During the War Of Independence he was the director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army. He was the commander-in-chief of the National Army in 1922 when he died in an ambush during the civil war.
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| Glasnevin Cemetery |
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| Michael Collins’ Grave Site |
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| Tower Over Daniel O’Connell’s Grave - Founder Of Glasnevin Cemtery |
After Michael Collins’ tomb we went to find Michael Carey’s grave site. He was the first person buried at the cemetery - an 11-year old boy who died of TB or Consumption as it was known back in 1832. We followed signs after his grave site that took us in to the National Botanical Gardens. We learned yesterday that anything that starts with ‘National’ in Dublin is free, and we like free!!! The grounds of the gardens were gorgeous! We spent a couple of hours walking around looking at the trees, and flowers, and plants. The grounds are beautifully kept, and we found it very relaxing. It was a good stroke of luck to have stumbled on the gardens and we were happy for it.
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| Dr. Seuss Tree?? |
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| Jojo Under A Tree |
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| Tulip Garden |
We bussed back to Temple Bar and agreed that lunch was in order. Having been to quite a few pubs already we decided to go to something a little more fast food. We found a place close to the hotel. I can’t remember the name but it is best described as homemade fast food. Jojo and I both decided on a chicken shawarma and a pop. It was cheap (next best thing to free) and we got a lot of food for the money. We are back at the hotel and had a mini-break.
Next stop was the ‘National’ Gallery - you guessed it: free!!! It was rather hot in there but we managed long enough to see some impressive artists’ work including Picasso, Monet, Van Gogh, Degas to name a few. We enjoyed a section on Irish stained glass, and finished off with Caravaggio’s “The Taking Of Christ”.
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| Irish Stained Glass |
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| Caravaggio - The Taking Of Christ |
After leaving the gallery we weren’t quite ready to head back to the hotel so we grabbed a cold drink and went back to the Trinity College athletic field where we had a break on Day One. Lucky for us there was a (free!) cricket match going on. We found a bench and spent an hour enjoying the game and speculating on what some of the rules might be.🤣
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| Trinity College - Cricket Match |
We are now back at the hotel with no plans for dinner. I’m not sure what we’ll do. Tomorrow we will be up early to catch our 7:00 train to Dingle where we will be for three nights. We have really enjoyed the big city but are also very much looking forward to getting out to the country!!
Best part of Dublin:Jojo - Trinity College campus
JM - Hop-On-Hop-Off tour in the good weather
Worst Part of Dublin:
Jojo - The bus driver who thought he was in a rally car race 🤢
JM - Smokers and vapers!! 🤮
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| Jojo Looking Irish!! |
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