Believe it or not, as meandering as the stories can get here on the Ramble, we actually do try to keep an eye on the word count and also try to at least have a loose shape to the story of any given day or trip. Having been on the other end of plenty of disorganized or just plain boring vacation stories over the years, we try not to inflict those horrors on our friends. Sometimes we end up leaving things on the cutting room floor, so to speak, that in retrospect are stories that we think will stick with us. Here, then, are a couple of things we left out.

(Fun fact: since we don’t advertise or broadcast ourselves to the four corners, we probably know 80-90% of y’all personally. So, Hi!)

Back in 2012 we started off our honeymoon in Dublin. While we didn’t mention our hotel by name, it was The Westbury and it was just lovely. We loved its central location and being nestled into a kind-of-pedestrian area, plus the hotel itself was grand and they took care of a couple of American newlyweds splendidly. They took our bags off of us when we arrived early, and when we came back later to properly check in our luggage was already in our room, along with a bottle of champagne and serving of strawberries, by way of congratulating us on our nuptials.

Fast forward 13(!) years, and we’re back in Dublin on the tail end of our jaunt through the British Isles. Lisa has earmarked exactly one destination in the city for this trip: Cloth, a fabric store. Although honestly, calling Cloth a fabric store is kinda like calling the Vatican a church. I mean, yeah, but that’s a massive undersell. Cloth is small but exquisitely stocked, with knowledgeable staff willing to chat with you about any old thing, confident that eventually the talk will turn to textiles. (Another fun fact: they are the only supplier of Irish linen actually in Ireland. Although maybe that’s not so much a fun fact as a weird one.) So, on one of our free mornings we grab directions from Ye Olde Google and head out on a pleasant 15ish minute walk. Imagine our surprise when we saw where we had arrived.

That’s right, Cloth was literally attached to the Westbury in a shopping venue. Suddenly we are both full-on tripping down memory lane, going back and forth with “remember whens….?” and generally having a grand ole time. It was an unexpected delight that morning.

When we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, we also, almost as a matter of course, visited The Long Room. When we visited it back in 2012 it was full to bursting with books, being the college’s original library. While they had certainly expanded into a larger and more modern building, the Long Room continued to house older books of interest. Now, however, it was undergoing a massive renovation to catch up with current standards for preservation (humidity and temperature control for example.) The room no longer held any books at all and was mostly a historical curiosity as far as visitors were concerned. However, they had decided to make good use of the space by displaying the planet, in its entirety. Entitled “Gaia” by artist Luke Jerram, with the magic of modern tech it manages to project an accurate scale image of planet Earth onto a giant sphere; the image moves to give the illusion of the sphere rotating albeit faster than 1 revolution per 24 hours. It is a truly spectacular object to spend time with, and the frission of such a modern piece of art to be hanging in a 300+ year old library that smells of old wood and leather. Honestly we’d have bought a ticket if “Gaia” was the only thing we’d get to see.

The end of this trip is logistically the beginning. As I think has been discussed, the reason we hit the road in the first place was to end up in Dublin around this time; everything else we did was backtracked from here. So, we’ve seen the Giant’s Causeway (which neither under- nor over-whelmed us) and we’ve toodled all over the Isle of Man (which was pretty good at whelming, all things considered). On a crisp morning, eaaaaarly for a vacation, we returned our car and boarded the packet steamer for a 3-ish hour sail to Dublin, Ireland.

Arriving in new cities in the morning can be tricky. If you’re carting luggage, you’re rolling the dice that your lodging will hold it for you even though your room probably isn’t available yet – although, true, most decent hotels don’t have a problem with this, gods know short-term rentals are a crapshoot. Even if you drop your bags, the time gap between then and check-in can feel daunting to utilize, especially if you’re at the end of a long journey. Fortunately for us it was a quickie this time; unfortunately there was a huge football match going on in Dublin and you couldn’t hire a cab or a rideshare for love nor money. So, the two of us and about sixty Manx schoolkids on a field trip piled into one bus and trundled into the heart of Dublin. (And here’s a pro-tip: Dublin is the first city in Europe we’ve been in for quite some time that was cash only on its public transit. The harried driver waved us through, but we were moments away from being completely screwed.) Once we reset ourselves, we made straight for a place held dear in our hearts: Trinity College of Dublin.

Trinity College is one of the first places we visited on our honeymoon back in 2012, and it has lost none of its charm. We didn’t go on a tour of the whole campus this time, though; we were there to see the revamped presentation of the Book of Kells. Since we were last there, they’ve erected an elaborate entrance with numerous displays about the history and significance of the Book, which is nice since, when you actually get to see the book, it can be underwhelming. After all, for the sake of preservation they only display one open page, it’s under serious glass, and no pictures are allowed. Completely understandable precautions, but that still doesn’t make for the most enthralling exhibition. Fortunately, before and after the actual display space are just chock-a-block with less precious but still interesting artifacts as well as a detailed lineage explaining why we even care about this particular book. After the Book of Kells display you actually navigate across the campus to an entirely new structure that has been erected, with further displays including an “immersive experience” that plays out much like the currently popular “living Monet/Van Gogh/etc etc…” exhibitions across the world. And, of course, there’s a gift shop.

Popping out from Trinity College we made our way back to our hotel for a pit stop, then it was a quick jaunt to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This was on the recommendation of family, and it was a fairly up-and-down experience. On the one hand, it’s a beautiful building owing to a steady influx of tourist income. On the other hand, the steady influx of tourist income stems from the fact that the place is like Disney Catholicland. Seriously, there’s a pop-up gift shop inside the sanctuary. I’m not Catholic and I still had my nose fairly bent out of shape. Still, if you want to tick the box on iconic locations in the city, it’s worth a quick visit. After a low-key dinner we tucked ourselves in for the night, ready for our flight home the next day.