Day 12, June 12, Dublin

This morning we were headed off to Dublin for a day on our own.  But first we went to Avoca woolen mill.  We had a very nice tour and then were able to shop a bit.

I remember my grandmother having a loom in her basement about this size.  She used to weave rag rugs on it.  I can remember if you were well behaved you could go down and weave on it.

As we crowded into the tour area, the lady giving the tour has just held up a beautiful throw that was square's of blue and green which reminded me of the sea and land here in Ireland.  As soon as I saw it I knew I was going to leave here with one.

When we were done at Avoca some of the ladies didn't want to go to Dublin.  They wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.  So to keep them happy the driver took them back to the hotel.  Which was great for them but the rest of us lost an hour of our free time in Dublin.

By the time we got to Dublin, we had about 4 free hours.  We did drive around just a bit to get our bearings.

This was in Phoenix Park where one of the Pope's recently said mass.

Thought the cow skulls on the building friese were interesting.  And we drove through the Edwardian part of Dublin and got a look at all the interesting doors of Dublin.  This is the most ornate one.

  Many of the ladies headed to Trinity University to see the book of Kells, some went to Christ Church Cathedral others to St. Patrick's Cathedral  I walked around for about 3 hours before my knee started to really hurt.  I was afraid I might not make it back to the bus, so I slowly headed that way.  It had rained a couple of time quite hard, but wasn't at the time I was walking back.  Luckily our bus was there and waiting so I just got on.  In my walk I had seen 3 charity shops while we drive around so I had found all of them and looked but didn't find any men's shirts to buy, or anything else.

We were supposed to head to the hotel for a dinner at 6 as out farewell dinner with the International Quilt Festival of Ireland sponsors.  But we had one gal get disoriented and lost and we were a half hour late looking for her.  Happy we found her and it wasn't that she got sick or mugged, just lost.

So we headed back to the resort for a lovely dinner.  Tomorrow we head for Belfast and our last 2 days of the tour.