A foggy day in London town...: My Ireland Home: Day 3

On Sunday the Swedes headed home at lunch time so it was just me, 2 girls from Philadelphia and a ethnically confused Dane/Bulgarian. I managed to escape from the girls for a bit while they did the walking tour which I had done on Friday. While they were discovering the secrets to my previously unprompted knowledge of Irish history, I was exploring along the River Liffey and headed down towards the Port at the mouth. I came across some of Ireland's most interesting and most recent architectural ventures with some very modern buildings sitting on the river bank. Outside the port is a large Ferris wheel similar to that of the Wheel of Brisbane. There were some great market stalls in this area and a really good funk/soul band entertaining the crowds.

Some more exploring took me to the Grand Canal Theatre, the main performance venue in Dublin which is very modern and very abstractly designed. This led on to the discovery of the home of Oscar Wilde, the famous Irish writer, which was a modest townhouse in a street of identical doorways. I then headed for the National Museum and looked at the various Viking and Egyptian exhibits on display showing parts of Ireland's quite interesting history.

After leaving the museum I dropped into a tiny little pub called O'Donoghues Bar which is a revolving door of Irish music, both rock songs and very traditional ballads. It was nice to sit and listen briefly to a quartet playing some very traditional Gaelic ballads.

I then headed back to the hostel, hoping to get to Christchurch Cathedral in time for the Evensong service. It turns out I have difficulties reading 24 hour time. I interpreted 15.30 as 5.30pm...so I was 2 hours late for the service at Christchurch. I was really disappointed by this as I was very eager to go inside and experience the 980 year old Cathedral properly. Behind the Cathedral is the sight of the old Dublin Musick Hall which was the venue where Handel gave the world premier of "The Messiah" in 1742.

Down the road from Christchurch is St. Patrick's Cathedral which was built in 1192 on the site believed to hold the spring where St. Patrick carried out baptisms in the 5th Century. The Cathedral and surrounding gardens are beautiful and a definite highlight of the trip.

On my way back to the hostel I stopped in to do some souvenir shopping. My options were either Guinness merchandise or leprechaun merchandise. What diversity! It made it difficult when getting things for Matthew and Andrew considering they aren't too keen on either of the options!

Back at the hostel we all got ready and headed out to a quiet place to eat dinner and listen to more of the addictive live Irish music.

I was awake before the sun was up on Monday, jumping on to the bus again to take me back to Dublin Airport for my flight home to Leeds. I met a girl from Tasmania who has been living and working over in London for a few years now at the O2 Arena and who seems to go backpacking whenever she wants...this has given me some scary ideas!

Unfortunately customs weren't impressed with my jar of Guinness Wholegrain Mustard which I was carrying in my bag and it was put in the bin. Sorry Andrew Benfer...no Irish memento for you :(

I boarded the 0740 flight to Leeds-Bradford and waved goodbye to Dublin and to the 3 crazy days of Irish fun! I'm still devastated that I didn't run into the Corrs though.