Ireland Day 1 Itinerary

Both our flights left on time from Columbia to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Dublin Ireland. From Atlanta to Dublin is 7 hours flying time but you pick up 5 hours flying east. To make a long story short you fly all night and arrive at sunrise and if you don't sleep on the flight over you are now up for 24 straight hours. As we could not get into our rooms till noon we went sightseeing in Dublin with no sleep the night before. It rained, it rained and it rained some more. Rivers were overflowing, trains were stopped from the flooding and we were walking around Stephens Park taking pictures of the flowers. From Stephens Park we took the hop on and hop off bus tour and went to the Guiness Brewery for the tour there. An interesting sidebar is that in 1704 the Guiness Brewing company took out a 9000 year lease on 45 acres of prime land in Dublin for 45 pounds a year. God only knows what that would be in today's money. From the brewery we went to the Book Of Kells museum which has virtually all the original manuscripts and books of worth that were transcribed by the Monks in various monasteries. Words cannot do justice to the beauty of these old manuscripts hand copied in every color of the rainbow on calf skin hides. The Book of Kells are kept in the Christ Church College Library which is awesome and breathtaking in and of itself. The day was finished off with a stop at a local pub called O'Neills. By then everyone was totally exhausted and we went back to the rooms and crashed.