Day Two in Northern Ireland

The Old Library Long Room

After breakfast at the hotel we decided to do some exploring around Dublin. We ended up over at Trinity College. It's really beautiful and very old, founded in 1592 by Elizabeth 1 of England. We wandered all around the campus and then into the Old Library.

The Old Library was constructed in the 18th century and holds the Book of Kells, a 9th century gospel manuscript famous all over the world. Upstairs is the Long Room which houses over 200,000 of the libraries oldest books. Visit The College Dublin web site for more information about The Old Library and The Book of Kells.

After our tour of the Trinity College and The Old Library we walked back to our room and packed up to leave for the Bay Cottage B&B in Antrim County Northern Ireland where we were spending 3 nights. Our plan was to enjoy a stage or so of the Giro d'Italia and do some exploring around Northern Ireland.

We asked the desk to call a taxi to take us to Hertz in Dublin to pick up our car. We rented an Audi A4 diesel. Chris had to learn very quickly how to negotiate from the righthand side of the car on the lefthand side of the street in a strange city. Fortunately we had our Garmin. We managed to miss the turn onto the ramp anyway and spent the next hour or so driving around trying to find a way onto the motorway we could see "right over there". 

We had planned to do some sight-seeing on our way to the B&B but we were so happy to be on the right road, headed in the right direction that we didn't want to chance any side-trips. We had lunch at an Applegreen at an M1 North service area. It was really pretty good!

Bay Cottage B&B on Loughview Rd.

It had begun raining by the time we crossed into Northern Ireland and continued to rain off and on for the rest of our drive to the B&B. When we reached our B&B the sun came out and I took this photo.

Our Garmin got us to Loughview Rd. but than turned us in the wrong direction. I entered the address into google maps on my iPhone and Siri talked us in the right direction and to the door. After that we put away the Garmin and used the iPhone for directions. It worked perfectly even when we went the wrong way or missed a turn. A lot of roads in Ireland are tiny "goat paths" with no signage. Siri and Google guided us through it all. International cell data is expensive so you have to be willing to pay for it. I turned off the data whenever we reached a destination and saved as many places offline as possible. 

Our first night's dinner was at Fiddlers Pub in Crumlin. The food was alright and the Guinness was great. It's amazing how much better Guinness tastes in Ireland. 

After dinner we went back to our room and chatted with Elizabeth about our plans for the 3 days we would be there. She was a wealth of information and even provided some maps.