Moving on, we are in Dublin now, churches, churches, a castle and a university

We flew to Dublin this morning so we were up early and took the Metro to the airport.  We are staying in downtown Dublin tonight and tomorrow we pick up the motorhome to start our tour.  Today was for touring around Dublin.

The first picture is part of St Patrick's Cathedral.  I have more pictures but I need to work on them before I will post them.

As we were walking around we went pass Ross Road so I got a picture of James.

One of the problems with the churches around here is they are huge.  This is the Christ Church Cathedral below needed three pictures to get the whole thing in and I missed a part on the right end.

We did a tour of the Dublin Castle.  Part of the castle was built on the Viking castle that was built here around 900 ad.  The cement they used was made from of egg shells, horse hair ox blood.  The cement is still holding together.

This is were a lake was when it was a castle, it now has a Celtic knot maze.

This is the Viking part of the castle.

This is the chapel inside the castle.

This is the throne they built for King George IV's visit, the stool underneath they had to make when Queen Victoria came to visit so she could get into the throne unassisted.

We then wondered through Dublin University which was established in the 1500's.

Durham and Angels

On Thursday Kathie was working so James and I popped down to Durham to see the castle and cathedral there.  We took the train down and the ride was all of 12 minutes.  We walked into town and then along the river walk.

This is the castle from across the river.

Further down the river I got this shot of the cathedral.  It is right beside the castle.

There were a couple of rowing sculls being rowed down the river.  They had to stop just after this because there were a number of weirs downstream.

This is the view downstream from the bridge.  You can see the cathedral on the right.  The walk along the rivers edge was one of James's favourite things we have done since we got here.  It was quiet and there were very few people and only a couple of smokers.

This is the other end of the cathedral (from the river).

We tried to go through one of the museums but it was Thursday and not a bank holiday and not in June.

This is the side of the cathedral from the entrance to the castle.  The river is to the right and the other picture is of the left side.

This is the castle keep - the strongest part of the castle.  The castle was given to the University of Durham in the 1830's and most of the castle is now used for student housing.

In Gateshead just outside of Newcastle there is a huge sculpture call The Angle of the North.  It is on a hill top and can be seen for miles.

To give you some idea of the size, Kathie is comparing her 5 foot wingspan to that of the Angel.  That is Kathie at the bottom right of the sculpture.

I stood underneath the Angle and got this shot looking straight up to show the structure of the sculpture.

Glasgow

If it's Tuesday James and I must be on a train going somewhere.  This Tuesday it was Glasgow.

On the way we passed through Edinburgh and I got this shot from the train as we were leaving the station.  The rest of the pictures I got from the train are too blurry to post.

When we got to Glasgow we went straight to the KelvinGrove Museum and Art Gallery.  (OK folks - who recognizes the name Kelvin?) When we first got there I didn't think it was that big and thought we would be through in an hour or less and then find other things to do for the day.  3 hours later we left without seeing all of the exhibits because we had other commitments.  We could have spent all day there.  The picture below is the organ.  There was an organ recital while we were there.  The art gallery was cool as it explained the pictures and why certain colours were used and the symbolism of certain things in the images. 

We walked back to the Necropolis and had a quick look around before James went to meet Toben.

It was the nicest day we have had so far, a sprinkle of rain but mostly sunny and around 15.

Nottingham and Edinburgh

Here are the latest pictures.

Tunnels under the Nottingham Castle, used to bring supplies from the river up stairs.

Robin Hood

The oldest known pub.

Edinburgh Castle - It may look warm because of the May sunshine but looks can be deceiving.

View from the Battery over the city.  As you can see, it was raining.  All day it was very windy, and at times very wet.  At points it felt cold enough to snow.

Saw this across the valley.

This is the Queen's house.  This is where she stays when she is ruling Scotland.

We saw these but they didn't have any small enough for Nissa.

York

James and I spent the day in York. The first part of the day we walked the city walls. The walls have been preserved and are mostly complete. We then went to #Jorvik which is an excavation and recreation of the Viking trading post that was here in around 900 AD. It was really interesting to see the layers of "dirt" from other times to get down to the Viking era. It was about 6 metres of material. Of course below the Vikings material were the Romans and Anglo Saxons material, the Romans were another 2 - 3 metres below the Vikings.

James was not feeling well so we just sat around in the afternoon waiting for our train at 5:30.

More Pictures

Kathie was working and James was chillaxing so I cruised around town and took some more pictures.  The first few are from the new castle in Newcastle - dating from around 1172.

This is the view downstream from the bridge in front of the castle.  The white lines you see in the water are foam from whitecaps because it was really windy.

This is the castle wall close to the river with a satellite dish on the building behind it.  I wonder if they knocked some off the wall to get better reception.

This is the Barbican or entrance way to the castle.  This is where the drawbridge would be mounted to go over the moat, and, if the enemy got into the Barbican the archers and other soldiers would punish them from above.

Football anyone?  St James Stadium.  We are staying right across the street.  So Newcastle and Victoria are about the same size and St James seats about 55,000 people, and Sunderland which is just down the road has another stadium that is about the same size.  I wonder what kind of team in Victoria could draw 55,000 people on a regular basis.

Tower of London

We spent a large part of the Saturday visiting the Tower of London.   Here is a pic of Paul and James outside the tower (and you can see part of a more modern London towering over the top).

This is really as misnomer because there are a lot of towers that make up the castle.  We walked the walls, saw the Crown Jewels, viewed the Coins and Kings exhibition,  saw the Bloody tower and the Beauchamp Tower, and viewed lots of weapons in the White tower.  And climbed stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs.  Paul's cousin MaryLou met us there and they had a good visit while walking around.