May 19, 2018

    Today the ship has returned to Dublin, Ireland about 5 a.m.  Today was the day that Prince Harry married Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel. They will be known as their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. All over Britain and the Republic of Ireland the sun shone.  In Dublin, the morning temperature was 9 with a little breeze and a thin layer of cloud that let most of the sunshine through.

    There were other ships in port – the small P&O ferry European Endeavour, plus the luxury cruise ship 296 passenger Silversea Silver Cloud and the 420 passenger Conti Hamburg.

    We were on the bus by 8 a.m. with 44 other passengers.  Our excursion took us south out of Dublin to the Glendalough Monastery via a scenic route into Wicklow county where we saw cattle, sheep and horses grazing in the fields. We drove through Dun Laoghaire’s port, where the Princess ship we were on anchored and passengers were tendered in 2015. 

   The Irish forests were cut down over the centuries for ship building, livestock pastures and houses.  The Irish trees were used to build the Viking ships. There are three types of deer in Ireland.  We saw a deer as we strolled the path to the Upper Lake near  Glendalough Monastery. The colourful yellow gorse with its prickly needles was planted as fences to keep sheep within their pastures. We passed Sugarloaf Mountain.  The area near the 6^thcentury monastery was mined in the late 19^thcentury and early 20^thcentury for copper and silver.

   We had two hours to explore Glendalough Monastic City. Glendalough means the glen of two lakes. It was established in the 6^thcentury by St. Kevin. We followed our guide, Derek, through the entrance – the Gateway - and were shown the “Burden Stone”.  If you touch it, you can leave your worries behind and feel better.  Many people touched it to leave their former lives behind and join the monastery.  The first structure was the 33-meter Round Bell Tower built between 900 and 1200 AD with its main entrance four meters above the ground.  A ladder was used to enter the tower and when invaded by marauding Vikings, the ladder was pulled into the tower and the people in the tower were safe and could easily defend it.  There were six levels inside.  The monastery also had schools and existed for over six centuries until destroyed by the Normans in 1214.

   Next, we strolled over to the former St Peter and Paul cathedral, which is a roofless stone shell. The lower stones were laid in the 10^thcentury and the upper stones were added in the 12^thcentury.  Nearby was the monolith St. Kevin’s Cross – a Celtic Cross. The Celtic Cross was created by St. Patrick to fuse the pagan circle, for worshipping the sun and the moon, with the Christian cross. We continued to the intact 12^thcentury church, known as St. Kevin’s Kitchen, and were able to enter it.  It barely held the group of 47. Then we exited the grounds onto one of the many paths in Wicklow Mountains National Park. The Wicklow Way covers 127 kilometers.  We took the wide 3.1kilometer path along the Lower Lake up to the Upper Lake where St. Kevin would retreat for quiet.  It was a lovely walk with birds chirping and sheep baaing in the pasture.

   Back in the bus, the passengers were given the words to Danny Boy for a sing-along. We passed through the town of Roundwood.  Derek gave recommendations for places to eat and drink in Dublin. There were many cyclists on the road back to Dublin all wearing cycling jerseys, shorts and helmets.  As the bus descended from the higher heights of Sugarloaf Mountain, there were some cyclists for the driver to carefully go around. Once in Dublin near Merrian Square at Leeson and Adelaide we crossed the Royal Canal one of several canals built over 200 years ago.  

   The ship supplied a list of the voyage distance Dublin to Belfast 102 nautical miles, to Reykjavik 812 nautical miles, Akureyri 335 nautical miles, Lerwick 700 nautical miles and  555 nautical miles back to Dublin. The voyage has covered 2,509 nautical miles.

   We joined the group table for dinner in the dining room. Jo-Anne and Pat are staying onboard for the next 10-day cruise to the southern portion of the western Norway coast.  It was Brian and Brendene’s 45^thWedding Anniversary today. At the end of dinner our waiter brought a small chocolate cake with one candle, then sliced it into 9 pieces so that everyone could have a piece.

  Today we both selected Cobb Salad to start and chicken as the main course, but one came with cooked spinach and rice and the other had mashed potato and cooked cauliflower.  We both chose a chocolate biscuit slice for dessert.

    After dinner we packed most of our clothes before going to the evening show by a local group called Celtic Night.  They are a group of four musicians and a six person Irish dancing group. It was a fun Irish music show.

   After the show we went to Café al Bacio and met Karen and Peter who had spent the afternoon in Dublin and bought some books for us.  They leave to go back home tomorrow.

We walked 11.63 km today.