Today was going to be a low-key day, and we agreed we didn’t need to get the 15,000 steps we’ve gotten each day in Dublin. We even came back to our room for nearly two hours this afternoon. Yet somehow I ended up with over 21,000 steps. So much for good intentions.
We started by walking to the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript from about 1400 years ago of the 4 gospels. Not exactly my favorite reading material but something worth seeing while in Dublin. It’s at Trinity College which was established in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. The exhibit was ok, lots more detail than I wanted, and an audio tour that we decided not to partake in, though too many of those who did made sure to stand exactly in front of the exhibit while listening to block others from reading the material. But as the 800s aren’t an era that I’ve studied much or wanted to study in great detail, it’s easy to oversimplify and assume that they lacked modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and cell phones let alone e-readers, and that only the wealthiest families had the disposable income to afford luxuries like books (or, for that matter, be literate). It is impressive to see something that’s 1400 years old, even if it felt a bit anticlimactic.
But upstairs from the Book of Kells, that’s another story. The Long Room. It’s a library, and an impressive one to say the least. Each “bank” of shelves is designated with a capital letter or two (section A was on the right, section AA on the left), up to at least S and SS. Each shelf has a lower case number, starting at the bottom. Needless to say, the building predates the Dewey Decimal System. Books were shelved by acquisition timeframe, with section A/AA being the oldest. Within acquisition timeframe they were shelved by size, with the larger books at the bottom. So a book would be designated Nd4 to indicate section N, shelf d, and the 4th book from the left. A clever system, though not exactly scalable to today’s world. Some of the sections had names assigned to them (presumably either important people in Trinity’s history or major donors), my favorite was Dermot Smurfit, I even took a picture of this intriguing name. Needless to say, this was an utterly fascinating room to explore, and made the price of admission worthwhile.
We walked around the campus for a bit, then meandered our way to Grafton Street which has been described as the premier shopping street in Dublin. Yes, lots of fancy places, and nothing resembling the Dollar Store. We entered Marks and Spencer, a well-known England-based clothing store when we noticed that they had a rooftop eatery, and had a pleasant but unremarkable lunch. Then we found our first cache of the day, on Grafton Street, and decided to find a puzzle cache a couple of kilometers away before returning to our lodging.
After a nice break, during which I made serious progress on my book, we ventured back out for June’s event cache, at a pub about a kilometer away from our lodging. There were about a dozen people there, from Ireland, England, Canada, Sweden and the US. Wonderful to meet an Irish reviewer. I need to stop drinking apple cider.
I’m happy to report that my belongings appear to fit in my luggage, even with the addition of a t-shirt and a couple of magnets, though admittedly some space was created by the consumption of some travel munchies. We’ve checked in, determined which bus to take to the airport, and have a tentative time schedule for ourselves. Assuming all goes well for everyone, June, the Davids and I will all be in our Vienna airbnb tomorrow night.
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