Rub-A-Dub-Dublin!

Our last full day in Ireland was spent in and around Dublin.  Matt and I wanted to make sure to explore the city, but we knew going into it, it was not going to be our favorite part of the trip.  To Matt and I major cities are all the same and offer many of the same things.  But we did want to hit the highlights so we bought tickets for a tour bus which brought you around the city to see what you might want to visit and you can hop on and off as you wish.  That was definitely worth it because even if you didn't want to spend time at a particular attraction you still were able to see it.

Our first stop off the bus was to see St. Patrick's Cathedral.  You're not able to go through all of it, obviously, but what you do get to see is beautiful!  When we arrived there was a choir from America singing in the front and you could hear them all the way in the back of the church because the acoustics were just that incredible.

Our next stop was at my request.  I enjoy learning about crime and deviant behavior and Dublin has an old jail that you're able to tour.  Back before it became a museum, it housed many political inmates and was where solitary confinement was first used.  It now operates only as a jail, but you are able to see the individual cells, the chapel, where the inmates did their exercise and even where the firing squad would do their executions.  

 Prison cell with the door closed

Most cells had a window to look out of - view from the courtyard

Those were the two main stops of the day.  We wanted our last full day to be leisurely since we had such a full trip.  We enjoyed a late lunch, did some shopping and just walked around the streets.  It was a nice way to end the trip.  Here are a few more sites we saw along the way, but for the most part, we just took the sites in and savored our last moments in Ireland.

 This is the Irish President's home

 The one and only Guinness.  We did not do the tour as Matt went on it on a previous trip and I do not have any interest in beer.  I will say it was a very popular stop so it was on most people's list of things to do.

Trinity College.  We walked around the grounds and felt really old.  Thirty-somethings do not belong on college campuses :)  Seriously, though, it really was beautiful and worth a stop.

That night we went back to our Bed and Breakfast and packed for our long travel day back to the US!