Today was the official last day of the tour, but most of us set off on our own or were shuttled to the airport to fly home. I did arrange to meet with Jina and Ellen, and Guy and Donna for the Musical Pub Crawl at 7.30pm, though. Other than that, it was sad to say goodbye to Tom and Donna, and Charlene and Lael and James. Though I might run across the latter 3 while I’m around Dublin.
I set off to my new abode at The Best Western Premier Academy Plaza Hotel near O’Connel Street, by taxi. The taxi cost me nearly 10 Euro, which was a bit much for that short drive, I thought. But what can you do. I didn’t want to carry my bags that distance!
I checked in and dropped my bags off, since my room wasn’t ready, it being about 10:30am. Then I hit the Cathedral District using the hop-on-hop-off bus. The bus stop is across the road from the hotel, so very convenient. I took it down to where Christ Church comes into sight and just walked around from there. Firstly past Christ Church, of course. I didn’t go inside, since they wanted nearly 7 Euro and from the peek I had inside, it didn’t look worthwhile (I’d also read something to that effect). I considered going in the Dublinia exhibition (in the building on the left), but decided to just go to the museum on Saturday instead, since that’s free:
Then I walked to St Audoen’s, which looks like a Greek temple on the outside, and had a look inside the church. It seems to be mainly polish these days and even has a polish language school there on Saturdays:
Next to it is the old church which is partially museum and partially still used. It’s quite old and still being used in a section of it. I love how it’s surrounded by a garden (though it looks like pretty weeds, mostly!):
Next, I walked around the street along the old city wall to the St Audoen’s Gate (though I could’ve just gone straight from the churchyard, as I found out later). The picture is actually of the gate from the inside, because the outside shot was straight into the sun, unfortunately:
Just down the road was the Franciscan Church Adam & Eve. It was quite full of praying people so I didn’t want to walk around too much, though it was very pretty:
This was directly across the river from the Four Courts, so I took advantage and photographed that while I had the chance:
Then I headed back past Christ Church to look at St Patrick’s Cathedral.
As I was waiting for the lights to change, I started chatting with a local lady because I was standing there freezing, with my tshirt, vest, cardigan and raincoat/windbreaker and she was wearing a sleeveless blouse, and I commented on this to her. She and I started chatting and she told me about the free Opera in the Open that was going on in the park near Christ Church. I took a photo and hung around for a while, but I’m not really interested in Opera so I continued on my way:
When I got to St Patrick’s, the shots from the park were not to be with the position of the sun all wrong for it. I got some nice ones from the other side though. I even went inside, because I had some time to kill before Marsh’s Library, so thought I might as well do it here. It’s not really worth it, but it was OK. I do love stained glass:
Next stop was Marsh’s Library. The oldest Library in Ireland. It wasn’t that interesting, unless you were into anatomy and medicine. Pictures weren’t allowed on the inside:
I headed back in the general direction of the hotel, since I wanted to get my room and sit down a bit before I needed to go back to the Temple Bar District for the Musical Pub Crawl. One of the places I passed and looked at was the old South City Market:
I’d read about the Powerscourt House Shopping Centre which was just across the exit from here, so I looked at that as well. It was really nice:
Last stop this afternoon was at St Andrews, which was a church but is now the Tourist Information Centre. After taking a photo of the outside – :
- I headed inside to find a tour of Powerscourt Gardens etc, that contained everything I wanted to see.
I wandered back to the hotel to get my room organised and rest up for a little bit (and do some washing) before getting back on the hop-on-hop-off bus for the ride across the river to the Temple Bar District for the Musical Pub Crawl. Jina and Ellen didn’t turn up, as I had mostly expected, but Guy and Donna did, so that was great! It started off here and we were introduced to our musicians for the night: Eugene and Martin:
We moved on to two more pubs, each time in our own private room. The musicians were really good and fun, as well as educational. They don’t usually play together, which makes it more like the real sessions where people just get together and start playing and join in or wander off as they please, apparently. They don’t actually get paid for these sessions, but people buy them beer and that’s good enough for them. Donna and Guy enjoyed this as much as I did, so thanks for the recommendation, Cathy from my first tour!
