Feels a bit like Melbourne

Dublin is a big city, bigger than Glasgow, 1.35million people. The city centre straddles the River Liffey, which combined with wide streets and a slightly different architectural style compared to Scotland, gives the city a more continental feel, almost like a dowdy Paris, but also a bit like Melbourne.

 The Spire, a thin stainless steel 120m high spire on one of the main streets.

Georgian townhouses. The one at the end is just a facade, built to hide an empty development site. You'd never know. Did you know they made the windows at the top smaller to increase the appearance of height and reduce the amount of window tax payable.

 The Guiness brewery covers 65 acres near the city centre. They make a lot of the black stuff. I saw a full sized tanker truck full of Guiness heading toward the port. The Guiness site is leased for £45 a year on a 9,000 year lease signed in 1759! Arthur Guiness got a good deal there. The Guiness family have been very generous to Dublin, housing their employees, educating their children, giving them free medical care, building hospitals etc... We did not go in. This photo was taken from the top of one of many double decker city tour buses. We did an interesting 2 hour tour in very humid weather. And really enjoyed our recovery iced coffees afterwards.

Day 2 - Trinity College, where everyone comes to see the Book of Kells. That's the old library to the right, where the 2 volumes of the 4 volume Book of Kells, are on display in a small windowless room. The queue was so long when we arrived that we bought tickets from a hole-in-the-wall machine and came back later at our appointed time.

Once inside there was a good display explaining the history and processes used to create the amazing books we were about to see as well as some other not as old but still extremely old books that are in the library's collection.

A copy of one of the Book of Kells pages that was on display. The actual books are not made from paper. The pages are vellum which is calf skin. An estimated 185 calves died to create the Book of Kells.

The book, over 1200 years old. No photography allowed in the darkened room with a very tall guard keeping an eye on the people crowded around the stainless steel and glass cabinet.

Then we all wandered into the Long Room. There was a hushed hum as people quietly wandered gazing upward, observing a sense of respect for the library or perhaps the memory of past librarians going "Shhhh!" You would need a head for heights if you had to get a book from the top shelf on the top floor.

Trinity College is the oldest building we've seen in Dublin. Most of the buildings here seem to be no older than what we have in Hobart and Melbourne. And the streets are wide! Driving here is like driving in Melbourne. There is more traffic on the roads than this photo suggests but it is generally less congested than Melbourne, but Melbourne is five times bigger.

There are no skyscrapers, only medium rise buildings like these ones. The one on the right is the university student apartments where we are staying on the 3rd floor but we have to press 4 if we use the lift. Yup, it is rather Irish.

This country, so far, feels almost like Australia. Maybe Australia is more Irish than it is English?