Trinity College
At Dublin airport, we met with Alex, who flew in from Edinburgh, and headed to Avis for our rental car. We were surprised we needed to pay for insurance since our credit card did not cover us in Ireland which was a hit to the budget. Janie hopped into the right hand seat and began driving on the other side of the road as went into downtown Dublin. With Alex navigating in the front seat and J. R. navigating in the rear, we made it into Dublin with no trouble until we turned into Trinity Street Car Park, where we experienced our first of many narrow streets with oncoming traffic. After parking, we walked to Trinity College for a tour and to view the Book of Kells, perhaps one of the most famous medieval works, depicting scenes from the Bible.
Book of Kells
After a guided tour of the Trinity College grounds by a student, we went to view the Book of Kells which contains the four gospels along with other religious texts. It is written on calfskin with ornate drawings and calligraphy. Abstract decoration and images of plant, animal and human ornament punctuate the text with the aim of glorifying Jesus' life and message, and keeping his attributes and symbols constantly in the eye of the reader. The Book is thought to date back to 806 AD. After viewing the Book of Kells, we walked through "The Long Room", the 200-foot main chamber of the Old Library, which was built in the early 1700s and houses over 200,000 books.
Dinner & Hotel
Walking back to the car, we had lunch at the Bank on College Green where Alex and J. R. had their first Guinness of the trip, along with some exceptional fish and chips. Then it was back to the rental car to drive back to the Travelodge Airport South, our hotel for the evening. We ran into a little trouble with our Orbitz reservation as we thought we had a room large enough for all four of us, but the hotel considered a child to be an infant. So we had to book another room. The rooms were extremely hot as it was a warm day and there was no air conditioning. J. R. and Alex walked out to get some drinks at the local supermarket and then we turned in early after a long day.
