When Irish eyes are smiling

One of the highlights of out trip was meeting Aimee and Daniel in Dublin! Thanks to the weather our respective flights into Dublin were delayed by fog, so none of us actually knew when each other would arrive. Ironically after clearing customs and heading to collect our luggage, I spotted Aimee's blond hair and green gumboots in the crowd at the baggage carousel! After a lot of hugging and shrieking we caught a cab to our accommodation in Blackrock, a suburb of Dublin. This is the view we had from the back terrace.

The following day we did an organised tour of the Hill of Tara and Newgrange. Newgrange is a Neolithic site which is older than the pyramids and Stonehenge.  The photo below shows us standing in front of the enormous carved stones which decorate the entry to the the passage chamber. The fascinating thing about Newgrange is that during the winter solstice, sunlight enters through the small opening in the rock wall (which you can see in the photo) to perfectly illuminate an internal chamber which is more than 19 metres inside the structure. Wow! There is a lottery each year for tickets for the winter solstice viewing. Only about 20 people can fit in the internal chamber.

The Guiness Storehouse put on a party to celebrate Arthur Guiness' birthday. We just had to join in the celebrations while we were there!

Aimee was desperate to find some deer in Ireland! This is as close as we got in Dublin.

After doing the Newgrange tour we were keen to go to the National museum to see the collection of gold artefacts on display. This is the ceiling in the museum! The exhibition didn't disappoint either.

On our last day in Dublin we took the train to Dun Laoghaire a seaside town just a bit further north then Blackrock. 

Sorry Keeley, we didn't get to do the Viking tour in Dublin but we did see it go by when we were having a drink in O'Neill's pub!