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Dublin
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Dublin, Ireland, September 9
We had a quiet morning with breakfast and reading, as our excursion did not begin until 1:20pm. After breakfast we talked to Shane, the Oceania Club ambassador, who books future cruises, about the possibility of booking something for South America in early 2014. The schedule does not come out until October, so he booked us on one of the latest cruises in November 2013 in order to get the significant on-board discounts and the reduced deposit, and we will change to one for South America in October.
Today's excursion was a 5 hour walking tour of
Dublin. The morning had been gray and misty so we made sure to take the
umbrella. The bus took us from the port back to Trinity College and our smaller
group of 18 walked through the campus and heard both its history and its current
entrance requirements, etc. for about 45 minutes. We did not go near the Book of
Kells on this tour, so no overlap, which had been a concern. Our guide, Dave,
pointed out various buildings that were mentioned in James Joyce's "Ulysses" and
we headed to Merrion Square, near which was the birthplace of Oscar Wilde and in
which was a statue in his honor, with marble exhibits of many of his most pithy
quotes. We then headed for St. Peter's Square through the Georgian style
streets. We stopped at a pub for Guinness and then had 1 hour to wander around
the Grafton Street shopping area with its posh shops and walking streets, where
we actually bought an extra bag to lug home some things we had accumulated.
We returned to the ship at 6:15 to find a message from Bob and Jean to meet for
drinks at 5:45, so we dropped everything and rushed to find them. They had about
given up on us, but reversed their steps and we sat and chatted for an hour
before they went off to dinner. We had a late reservation at Jacques and by
dinner, Daryl had lost interest in food (hard to believe!) so had an appetizer
and soup. We were truly spoiled by everyone in Jacques, including Boris, manager
of all the ship's restaurants, who pulled us in early and personally set us a
table by the window with Norman.
