Trinity College Dublin and The Book of Kells

Hello and welcome to the start of another week! For the first time in over a month I was home in New York City this weekend and it was particularly lovely as my parents were in town – I love that when they come to visit! But instead of a weekend recap or highlights on my upcoming travels let’s take it back two weeks to Trinity College Dublin. Believe it or not I actually went three times while in Ireland, the first on a walking on my first afternoon where my tour guide had graduated five years earlier. The second was a real, planned visit where I took the official tour and visited the Book of Kells and the third was on my second to last day when my friend, who was only in town for 24 hours, and I did the express tour of the city.

This is a combination of pictures from all three visits but most, the ones with the most blue sky, is from my second visit where I did the Authenticity Trinity tour. The tour was a combination the official student-led guided tour of Trinity College and Admission to the Book of Kells. As a former college tour guide being led around by a paid tour guide (Georgetown guides were not paid) for a 30 minute tour that covered very little ground was a bit of let down but considering it was only 1 Euro incremental over the Book of Kells ticket it was okay.

It may be a 47-acre university but I only stayed on a few key acres surrounded by gorgeous Georgian buildings and I particularly liked the clocktower on Library Square, seen above. The campus was gorgeous with dozens of students milling around, a few couples doing photo shoots in their wedding attire, and the foliage starting to turn the pretties shades of orange, red, and yellow.

Located in the middle of campus The Book of Kells was easy to find and I was among hundreds of tourists who visited on a bustling Tuesday. Now it may just be that I am spoiled with the Met – heck, I was there yesterday – and I am sure if you had the chance to examine the whole thing it is quite a site but with dozens of people crowding around only two pages on display The Book of Kells was a bit of a let down. The massive wood panelled library with between 90,000 and 100,000 books in one room on the other hand? Now that was impressive! No photos were allowed of the Book so you will have to take my word for it that it was a pass (or just look at the post card) and bare with some of the sneaky shots I was able to get later on in the library!

Trinity College Dublin is a very pretty place and definitely worth a visit especially since you tick it off the list in 90 minutes or less and still not feel rushed! I hope you like the first real post from Ireland and are ready for many, many more! My tour of the Waterford Crystal Factory is coming your way later this week!