No surprise, it’s a rainy Saturday in October. Claire and I meet up downstairs for some coffee and granola before making our way to the city for a day of museums and books.
We get off near St Stephen’s Green and walk around the common, stepping in and out of bookshops and soaking in the sights between downpours. Claire has been looking for new board games so we make our way up Dawson Street and dash into Hodges Figgis to shop around and dry off.
Our first stop is Trinity College to check out the library and the Book of Kells. Excited to see where Claire went to grad school, we take a short walk around campus (still dodging the rain) and get in line for the Long Room. As we wait, Claire tells me about the Book of Kells and the page changing and some history on the school. We discuss different areas of the campus and where she took classes and befriend a few people in line with us.
When we get to the entrance desk, Claire’s sweet social skills with the lady there slip us right in to the library. The book is in a dark room fully enclosed in a glass display. People swarm around it to get as good of a look as possible. We read some of the history plaques and I squeeze between some of the younger (shorter) guests to peek at the book. It’s basically what you think it’d be: a really thick and old book with foreign script, artistic font, and ancient drawings.
The Long Room, to me, is more exciting. Upon entering, we’re immediately surrounded by floor-to-ceiling shelves of old books. At the base of each shelf is a marble bust of a famous writer or philosopher.
I’m told about how all the books are bound with flesh or leather from thousands of years ago. It’s incredible just to gaze up at the ladders and architecture and get full-on Beauty and the Beast and Harry Potter library feels.
After the library, Claire is excited to take me to the National Museum of Ireland to show off the bog bodies! What is a bog body, you ask? They are the bodies of people who fell into bogs (especially peat bogs in Ireland) and died. Click the link for more information.
I choose not to take pictures of the bodies but take the experience in as one to mark off the bucket list. Ah, what a day of history! The ceiling in the vestibule of the museum is really pretty though so I snap some shots of it before we head back outside.
Nothing provokes our appetites quite like some ancient mummified corpses. So off in search of lunch we go! We walk up and down the streets of the city checking out restaurants and shops until stumbling upon a colorful little place called Dolce Sicily.
It’s a little bakery and cafe a few steps down into the basement of the Design House on Dawson street. The vibrant green paint is what catches my eye and the cute home-like interior is what draws us in. When we first step in there’s a counter of lovely pastries to admire. The hostess leads us through two rooms (each with different colors of paint, mixed floral wallpapers, and a cozy eclectic collection of chairs and tables) and into the back one that reminds me of a tea room I went to as a little girl.
Behind Claire is a wall decorated with light green butterfly wallpaper. Deep pink paint covers the rest of the walls and back paneling of the shelves. To my right is a little drink area where I watch waiters and waitresses steep teas and pop bottles. Immediately behind me is a door that leads to the patio area. If the weather were a tad warmer, we may have requested a sit out there.
As most would agree, a rainy day calls for some soup and sandwiches. So that’s exactly what we order: carrot ginger soup and paninis. Claire goes veggie and I get a ham and cheese. To me, everything tastes better when it’s chilly and damp outside. Add that to all the walking and exploring and all those attributes make this the best ginger carrot soup I’ve ever had.
The rain has cleared by the time we finish our late lunch. Re-energized with some good food, we climb back up the stairs and out to the street where a bright sky and a crisp breeze get our boots walking.
One last stop of the day is to where Joe and Claire had one of their first dates: The Dead Zoo. No really, that’s what the locals call their natural history museum. The National Museum of Ireland looks pretty casual from the outside. In fact, they even trim their hedges to look like cute little creatures. But it’s what’s on the inside that counts, right?
The Dead Zoo is exactly what it sounds like. Desire rooms and rooms of stuffed animals? This is the place for you! There’s walls of birds, bunches of bunnies, and crates of otters. My favorite is definitely the giraffe.
After spending the rest of our energy on a museum of taxidermy, Claire and I start our walk back to the metro to head home and see what the boys are up to. We spend the evening sharing our adventures with Joe, Ben, and Teddy– who herds us all together by the fire.
-CRCH
In Light of Colleen 