It’s only 165 miles from Manchester to Dublin, but most of that distance is over the Irish Sea so the only two ways to get there are by air or by ferry. Air travel is less expensive and should be much faster. Any way you do it from Manchester is much less expensive than flying from the States.

You will note that I said air travel should be “much faster.” In our case, the trip took longer than it should have. Our original flight was canceled due to technical difficulties. No complaint about that; I have no interest in flying in a plane that is in questionable condition! However, our Ryanair flight kept being delayed as we were bumped from one plane to another as they searched for a spare aircraft for the short hop. When all was said and done we arrived in Dublin in a plane full of drunks (you can guess how they passed their time during the delay). All’s well that ends well, and we arrived in Dublin without further issue.

We were booked into the Metro Airport Hotel and appreciated their free airport shuttle. Upon checking in they told us we were being upgraded to a suite! It was as nice a hotel accommodation as we’ve ever had – a three room unit! One wall of the bedroom was filled with windows. Our only complaint was that just below us was a major highway intersection. I think we managed to arrive on an especially busy night as we heard sirens off and on throughout the night. Since the intersection is a major one the emergency vehicles turn their sirens on as they approach the intersection and then turn them off once they are through. Happily, things were much calmer the second night.

The city bus passes right through that intersection, making it easy to hop a bus and ride directly to the heart of Dublin. You might want to know that Dublin buses don’t accept credit cards. Upon arrival at the airport I stopped off and bought a one day “Leap” transport ticket, so we just held it against the card reader as we got on the bus and on other trips that day.

One thing we wanted to see was Dublin Castle. It was different than we expected, more of a palace than castle. There’s lots of artwork by famous artists plus rooms of fancy furniture and such.

From there we walked along the River Liffey where we happened on a college rowing event. It is amazing how fast the teams can get their boats going! We walked on the famous Ha-penny Bridge and then checked out O’Connell Street in the heart of the city.

From there we hopped a bus for a short ride to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. This is a surviving copy of the Gospels dating from the 800s – a beautifully handwritten and illustrated portion of the Bible. It was impressive to see it, but unfortunately for us, no photography is allowed. However, the Book of Kells is adjacent to the “Old Library” which dates back to the 18th Century. We took lots of photos there. There is a harp on display there that is several hundred years older than the Library itself. It is called the “Brian Boru’s harp.” Since the harp is considered to be a symbol of Ireland, seeing this ancient one there in Dublin is pretty cool.

A bus ride back out to the hotel with a stop for fish and chips finished our day in Dublin.