Girls Trip to Ireland

For months, my friend Alaina and I had been talking about taking a girls-only trip somewhere.  We finally settled on Ireland.  We booked our flight to Dublin and reserved a room.  We only had 2 days, so we figured we would just stick around Dublin.  But then we came across these Day trip excursions and booked one to Blarney Castle.  The trip ended up being absolutely amazing and very refreshing!
We arrived at the airport and were picked up by the hotel shuttle.  Our hotel room was very small, but perfect for our needs.    We then headed out into the city.  We started out our day with a trip to Trinity College to take a look at the Book of Kells and the most amazing library ever!  I don't know if the 10 euro entry fee was worth it but, I like seeing old things.  The Book of Kells is a beautifully illustrated manuscript containing the four gospels of the New Testament.  It's dated to around 1200 years old!  The library itself is much newer, only back to the 1700's.  The pictures don't really do it justice, it was really quite a sight!

The Long Room

After leaving there, we meandered through the city.  We quickly found that crossing the street was a little scary.  Most intersections had crosswalks, but the lights never seemed to come on for crossing and if no cars were coming, people would just go.  Also, they drive on the opposite side of the road, so we had to always keep that in mind.  We made our way over to the Christ Church Cathedral, founded 1000 years ago!

This church had a huge crypt, but I guess most of the bodies have been removed.  Now they have a cafe and store there and they used it to film a bunch of scenes from The Tudors tv series.  Just up the street, we found ourselves at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

 Founded in 1191, this church is at the site that St. Patrick apparently came and baptized some of the first Irish people to Christianity.  The church had a beautiful colored floor and a lot of interesting war memorials.  I've seen a lot of churches here in Europe and I can't say these were anything special.  But, beautiful, nonetheless.
We finished off the day by walking through the grounds at the Dublin Castle

and then found ourselves in the Temple Bar district, which is apparently the go-to place to eat and drink.  We found it extremely overrated and ended up eating at an out of the way cafe that was wonderful.
The next day we got up super early and walked back into the city to catch our bus for our trip to Blarney Castle.  It was dark for the first hour of our ride, but once the sun came up, the Irish countryside was unforgettable!  So green and picturesque.  We spotted several ruins on various hilltops, it was just so beautiful.  We arrived at Blarney castle and we couldn't have asked for better weather.

 It was sunny and not exactly warm, but completely bearable.  The castle, built on top of a rock formation in the 1400's, stands high and opposing.  The ruin was very much a ruin.  You really had to watch your step as you climbed through the castle to the top.  At the top of the castle, the Blarney Stone is built into the battlements.

 There is an air of mystery about the origins of the blarney stone.  What we heard there was that it was brought over from Jerusalem and gifted to the owner of the castle, who had it placed in the battlements.  The tradition of kissing the Blarney Stone is more recent, dating back to the 1700's.  Apparently kissing the stone, while hanging upside down gives you the "Gift of Gab."  Or the ability to speak eloquently.  It was a fun experience, you lay on your back, while a worker helps lower you over the battlement so that you can kiss the stone.  They have placed bars below you for safety, but it still is very high up!

After kissing the stone, we wandered through the castle a bit more and then began exploring the grounds.  I wish we had had more time there, it was so beautiful and peaceful and we could definitely have spent all day there, but the tour bus wasn't going to wait for us, so we hoped on and headed to Cork City for lunch.  

There are a bunch of caves under the castle, so of course, we had to explore them.

If you walk up and down these stairs backwards with your eyes closed, your wish will apparently come true.

Alaina and I weren't going to waste our time doing something so mundane, so we headed up the hill to St. Anne's Church.  The church was not anything exciting, but we climbed up to the bell tower where we got to actually ring the bells.  The crazy thing was that we climbed to the top, through one of the smallest staircases I've ever been on.  We got stuck at one point with other people coming down, so we had to squat underneath one of the bells and everything was covered in bird poop.  It was crazy, but a memorable experience.

It was SOOOO windy up here.  We couldn't breathe, it was crazy. 

Crazy, small staircase to the top.  No room to pass anyone!

Crouching underneath the bells.  Can you see all the bird poop?

We did have a chance to grab a yummy hamburger after a brief run through the city before heading back to the bus.  As a side note, Cork City is the last port the Titanic was at before sinking.  Our tour guide told us a story about a amateur Photographer named Father Brown, a clergy man, who as a young man decided he wanted to take a trip on the Titanic.  He boarded the boat in Belfast and stayed on it as it went to England and France, back to England and then it's last stop at Cork.  He begged his Uncle to let him continue on the boat to New York, but his uncle said no, you need to settle down and begin your work, etc.  He took a bunch of pictures as the Titanic was leaving port, the last pictures taken of the Titanic.  It wasn't until after his death though, many years later, that these pictures were found and made public.
After leaving Cork city, we went to a place called the Rock of Cashel.  It's a 12th century Cathedral that is now a ruin.  Unfortunately, it is undergoing a lot of construction, so pictures were a little less than stellar, but it was still a very beautiful site.  A nice way to finish off our trip.

I love old cemeteries and this one was really pretty.  People that have ancestors buried here can still be buried here as well.

You can't tell real well, but the ceiling is covered in Frescoes.  They have been bleached out because of some sort of microorganism.  They are slowly trying to fix them.

We arrived back in Dublin in the dark again and had a random, last minute decision to go to a  movie.  We saw The Theory of Everything, which was ok.  The acting was great, but really a sad movie.  What a fun day!
On our last day, we slept in and just kind of sat and relaxed in the room.  After finally deciding to get up and go out, we visited the Ha' Penny Bridge and spent a little more time in the city.

Ha' Penny Bridge.  You use to have to pay a half penny to cross.

We had a traditional Irish Breakfast, which was really yummy.  We did a little souvenir shopping then headed back to the hotel and our shuttle back to the airport.  It was such a great weekend and Alaina and I are already talking about trying to meet up somewhere in the future for another girls trip.  It was fun though, coming home to the kids so excited to see me.