In Dublin we stayed very close to the middle of everything, at a hostel-type hotel called Hazelbrook House. Reserving online in advance it wasn't clear how family-friendly (i.e., quiet when it got late) it would be, but it turned out to be great. We had a big room that was clearly designed for a bachelor/hen party to share - five beds in a big open room. On the other hand, they required a 10 Euro deposit to get the TV remote (for World Cup viewing, of course).
It was a big room with beds, but no other furniture, so the one meal we had in the room was picnic style. (One note - those bags of crisps are Tayto brand, which is also an Irish company that has its own crisps theme park. Mr. Tayto (the crisp with the hat and jacket on) ran for office in the 2007 Irish general elections.
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We were very close (about 200 yards) from the Dublin Spire, a public art item that was completed back in 2003. Here are a few views, including a slight freaky vertical panorama shot with Eero and Cielo (and the photographer's feet)
Alison had researched the best way to get around Dublin, and for us it turned out to be one of the hop-on/hop-off bus companies. The price of a three-day unlimited pass included transportation to and from the airport, and a couple of big circles around downtown Dublin. Plus: double-decker buses!
One of the big attractions in Dublin is Trinity College, where among other things is stored the Book of Kells, an illuminated medieval copy of the first four Gospels. The kids decided to sneak up on it.
This card catalog was in a window at Trinity - if you look at the cropped version you can see each drawer is labeled Faith, Hope, Poetry, etc. The little owl is in the "Wisdom" drawer, of course.
As we were standing in line for the Book (it was a long line but moved fairly quickly), a woman in front of us turned arorund and asked if were from Mountain View! Her daughter has just finished sixth grade at Cielo's middle school and recognized her - pretty weird!
This sculpture was nearby on campus - we couldn't find a plaque there, but found out later this is called "Sphere Within Sphere", by Arnaldo Pomodoro.
The Book of Kells has its own beautiful exhibit hall - no photos allowed. After you see the Book (it's actually in two volumes, so you end up getting to see four pages of it) the next step is the Long Library.
At St. Stephen's Green, we encountered this impressive family of swans.
The kids made good use of the ball game we picked up at Hamley's Toys in London. Here they are at St. Stephen's Green. There are two little red balls in the air.
Here there's only one ball in the air, but quite high!
When we looked at the map with the kids, one thing that jumped out for them was Phoenix Park, a 1700-acre-plus park that among other things had 100 new fawns born this spring (sadly we didn't see any). In fact since it was such a huge park we hardly saw a fraction of it. But the parts we did see during our visits (we went out there two days in a row) were pretty awesome. This is a particularly nice bit:
And some more flowers.
There was even a fair amount of jumping!
And then some resting (that's a cricket grounds in the background, which was hosting a kids' team practice when we were there).
