Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Ireland day 1: Dublin (part 1)

So here I am now, in Dublin.
Flight was relatively relaxed, only few turbolences. I was a bit nervous before departure that I have forgotten something important so I would be taken off the plane in the last minutes, but everything went fine.
Isa recommended the three days ticket by DublinBus, the local public transport company, because I'll move to her tomorrow. I had some issues with the ticket's RFID chip, it was damaged so it could not be read. Luckily the bus from the airport(line 747) has its first stop at O'Connell Street, directly on the opposite side of Dublinbus headquarters and exchange was quite easily.
You have the possibility to get a "Freedom of Dublin" ticket for 24 € for adults and 13 or 14 euros for Students. With that ticket you can go on the dublinbus sightseeing and normal bus lines and drop off at any place you like. However, all desired places can also be reached by foot easily, so in my eyes you should think about it twice. As the ticket is valid for 3 days like mine (I paid 13.50 €  without the sightseeing feature) it is only worth if you either want sightseeing by bus or go to the outer regions.
After arrival I went to "The Times Hostel", which is a footstep away from Trinity College. On my way there I passed the O'Connel Bridge, which is wider than it is large.


O'Connell Bridge*
The hostel building is not the newest, but the rooms are in a good condition, matraces soft and the bathroom looks clean, so it is more like a hotel than a hostel, you got free breakfast from somewhat 7 to 10.30 am. Due to its central location one footstep away from Trinity College and the bed prices starting from 15 €/night I would recommend it to you by 100%!
I wanted to take the "Histical Walking Tour" near Trinity College front gate at 15 o'clock, but I confused my cell phone with the different time zones so I was an hour too early. Oh what's that? An exhibition about the "Book of Kells" and some old library. Nine Euros entrance fee...uhm just try it.
Be warned! The "Book of Kells" part is not worth the boards it is presented on! The show on videos how books are made, bore you with stuff one already should know(such as Lapislazuli stones are used for blue color) and at the end section -bohoo- a "Book of Kells" is presented under a glass hood which is clearly a fake. The used cow leather to make those books in ancient times, but the pages there looked a bit too smooth and shiny. Plus you can see the ink dots, so it's just a re-print. I asked the "History Walking Tour Guide", Donnell(means Daniel) and he confirmed.
The second part was quite interesting. After going upstairs you end up in a long floor with book shelves over two floors on each side. The shelves were about 4 meters high each and contained some really ancient-looking books. In parallel, some books were presented in glass boxes which were partly interesting.
It really smelled of old wood and books, the way you would expect for an older library. On some boards, the history of british troops in india is being presented, but I only overflew them, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep the facts in mind either.
So from my opinion it would be worth 4 Euro for visiting that library, but not 8! Daniel does warn tourists about this cheating, too.
So time was running out and I went back to the meeting point.

My laptops accu is going empty, too, so this will follow in another post among with some nice pictures :)
If I may take one word ahead, that tour gets 11 of 10 possible points, it was really great, especially because it only costs 10 €!

By the way: Donnell said there is no public toilet in Dublin and I only can confirm that, what a shame! Oh and he told me about this one: Dail gates blocked by truck
Actually the whole cty talked about that. That man is a real hero, how would that end if it had happened in Germany?
* The linked picture is licensed under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa Germany license. See my Album on PicasaWeb for details

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