Tuesday 26th June - Wednesday 27th June

All at sea.

Thursday 28th June

Arrived in Dublin at about 3am & were woken by the thrusters turning the ship in the port.

Got up latish as we couldn't leave too early to find us moored on a quay with a scrap heap of steel just across from us together with a yard of coal fines, all in all a really salubrious berth.

For the first time since boarding the weather seemed quite warm at 18°C, with the sun shining.

After breakfast we took a shuttle bus about 20 minutes, into the centre of Dublin to a fine square with a park in the middle. Our first impressions were of how fine many of the 3 storey Georgian terraces looked with their lovely doorways.

We walked towards the River Liffey & Trinity College & found the National Gallery of Ireland on the way, so in we went. This turned out to be a true gem in every way as the galleries, which have been extensively re-modelled recently & the contents are all well worth seeing. Whilst the pictures are mostly lesser works of the great artists their careful presentation mainly in historical order is excellent. 2 of the outstanding works to us were a large Carravaggio rediscovered in the 1990s in a Jesuit house & a small study of a face by Rubens which is truly exquisite. We found it somewhat overwhelming & after 2 hours retired for a coffee promising ourselves that we must stay longer in Ireland to return to the gallery.

From there we visited an Irish Tourist Information office & bought two 24hr transport passes allowing us unlimited bus, tram & train travel for the day. Naturally being Noyelle's we set out to beat the record for the use of public transport in a day starting with the Luas Green tram system. The trams are very similar to modern Melbourne trams which run in the streets in the centre & on rail tracks further out. Our tram travelled for about 40 minutes to the terminus well south east of the city through the suburbs. It passed through several new housing estates & ended in an area of large office blocks.

Returning into the city we walked to a railway station & caught a train north to Howth, a fishing port & holiday area north east of Dublin. The train carried many people going to the beach there & to our surprise quite a few people were in the sea despite the long walk to the sea on a very shallow slope into the water. Here we found a quay full of fish restaurants so we had a seafood platter & a couple of beers.

Returning to the station we caught a train south to Bray on the coast once more. This 45 minute journey took us along the coast past some lovely bays & there we walked down to the pebble beach & along the sea front admiring the row of houses set back form the front. At the southern end of the beach there was a fine headland jutting into the sea. We returned into Dublin on the train & caught the shuttle bus back to the ship at about 8pm very pleased with our day of exploration convinced that we must return.