Dublin, Ireland
In truth, we are anchored in Dublin Bay, just off the coastal suburb of Dun Laoghaire just south of Dublin itself. We visited Dublin in 2010 after the family reunion in Cushendall, County Antrim. In 2015 I visited it again after I got my Irish citizenship. It is a beautiful city and well worth spending time in. Today I slept in until after 8, unheard of..
Mike and Maddie were able to get a morning excursion unfortunately we didn’t make the cut. We are all on an afternoon excursion to do panoramic Dublin and have an Irish Coffee.
After a light breakfast in the coffee connection, Mary & I played cards in the observation lounge. It started out as a typical Irish day weather wise. Cloudy with light rain. The view of the bay, and Dublin in the distance from the observation lounge, was very nice. The tables in the observation lounge are a good size to play to two handed canasta. It is a new deck of cards, and it didn’t favor me. May have to change decks.
Mike and Maddie should be back from their excursion soon and then we will do lunch. This is a tender port, so we will take the tender in and meet on the pier for our excursion after lunch. We had lunch in La Veranda before heading to the tender. Mike & Maddie had lunch ashore. The sea was rough, probably jest below the cut off for not allowing tendering.
Once ashore we got on the motor coach and spend the next couple hours riding though and around Dublin. Florida State and Georgia Tech will open the 2024 football season in Dublin today at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Crowds were heading to the stadium as we drove though town. Almost seemed like an American college town as a result. This will be the fifth college football game to be played in Aviva Stadium. According to the guide the people of Dublin love it.
The motor coach drove us out to Phoenix Park. The Phoenix Park is one of the largest enclosed public parks in any capital city in Europe. How you measure these things is interesting. The park is big – 1,750 acres. Birmingham has Sutton Park is is over 2,200 acres. But when you use the word enclosed, you restrict the definition and therefor you can place yourself higher on the list. On the Wikipedia list of parks, Phoenix is number 108, but a lot of those aren’t city parks. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is just over 1,025 square acres. New York’s Central Park by comparison is only 843 acres.
If you changed the parameters and you focus on the number of visitors per annum. The order of “size” would change.
The Phoenix Park was originally formed as a royal hunting Park in the 1660s and opened to the public in 1747. A large herd of wild fallow deer still remain to this day, although we didn’t see any. The Park is also home to the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, Áras an Uachtaráin, Zoological Gardens, Victorian Flower Gardens, a Biodiversity Information Centre, Phoenix Park Café and Tea Rooms. We stopped and were able to walk through the Victorian Kitchen Garden. We saw pumpkins, both white and orange, corn and other vegetables which may hv=ave been grown in Victorian times to feed the lord of the manor. The Phoenix Park is only a mile and a half from O’Connell Street. Both passive and active recreational pursuits may be pursued such as walking, running, polo, cricket, hurling and many more. The Glen Pond is set in very scenic surrounds in the Furry Glen. There are many walks and cycle trails available to the public. It is also the home to the American Embassy and Irish President’s Home.
We headed back to the ship riding along the Bachelor’s Walk and the River Liffey. We stopped for our Irish Coffee at the Arlington Hotel next to the O’Connell Bridge in the heart of Dublin City Center. The Arlington Hotel is one of the most popular Dublin city hotels and it is said to be traditionally Irish. The hotel looked like what one would expect if Disney was going to try and give you the full Irish experience where customers can get involved with the best of the Irish culture. They even offer Celtic Nights with traditional Irish music and dancing show.
We were herded into a back room, slash bar, where we were served our Irish Coffee. It is nothing like the Irish Coffee you get anywhere outside of Ireland. The cream on the top makes all the difference. It is rich and creamy, which it should be. It is a good thing no one seems to be able to duplicate this outside of Ireland, as I would drink too much of it.
From here it was back to the ship. We arrived back just before six. We had 7:30 dinner reservations a Prime 7, the steakhouse. The Prime 7 is bigger on this ship than it was on the Mariner. It has the same menu, and the food is quite nicely prepared. We had a nice bottle of wine with dinner. Mike and Maddie had the popcorn sunday for dessert.
It was a good day, Buonanotte e Ciao, Enrico
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