After storm Lilian passed through, Friday was forecast to be gusty and generally unpleasant, so it seemed a good idea to see the bits of Dublin we missed on Tuesday. Rather surprisingly, Facebook divined my intention, and showed me a link to book a visit to the Book of Kells. That was actually very useful, because it transpired that very few slots were left on Friday. In fact, the only viable option was a walking tour of Trinity College at 5pm, followed by a visit to the Book of Kells experience. So I booked it, for a whopping €33.
I spent Friday morning, once I had dragged myself out of bed, showering, catching up with work emails, and bringing the blog up to date.
Around 1300, I took the Dart into the city and walked once again to the National Gallery. I knew that we had missed a number of paintings, because the National Gallery owns a Vermeer which we hadn’t seen, and Seán the singer had mentioned the National Portrait Gallery, which we hadn’t seen either. In spite of already having visited once, it took me two trips up the flights of stairs to work out where on earth I needed to go to see the other paintings. It may be that if I had come in at the other entrance, it would’ve been more obvious, but I really think they could do with better signage. Anyway, there were vastly more paintings than we saw in total last time, some lovely and repaying close examination, others distinctly dull. Eventually, I found the Vermeer, which was next to a closed room, so effectively in a cul-de-sac. I found paintings by Titian and Tintoretto, Rembrandt and Goya, and many less interesting artists. I enjoyed the national portrait gallery, which was 20th and 21st century, and included some entertaining portraits of many Irish people, from Samuel Beckett to Michael Gambon. After that, I was knackered, and I’m afraid scooted through the Irish painters in favour of a cappuccino and Portuguese custard tart at the café.
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| Found the Vermeer |
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| I hadn’t really thought of Michael Gambon as being Irish, probably because his son Fergus (family friend) is so English |
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| The Madonna of the Woodworm |
I still had time to kill, so thought I would trot down to St Stephen’s Green before going back to Trinity College. One of the linking streets was hosting an Israel-related protest – I could find an alternative route with no problem, but it seemed to result in traffic gridlock. Anyway, the park was charming and worth the walk.
But when I got back to Trinity College it was very hard to work out where I was supposed to be. From the point I was directed to on Google Maps, I was sent round to the front of the building, and from the front of the building I was sent round to the back again, to meet under the campanile, which looks nothing like the photos in the email because it is covered in scaffolding. Fortunately I did then find our guide Ethan, but it seems that the whole system was a bit faulty, because at least half of our group missed at least half of the tour before catching up with us.
Ethan was good fun and gave us an interesting tour of the college - made slightly surreal by the fact that my current comfort reading is Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night, set in a slightly fictionalised Oxford, so I was already in a different university in my head.
The Book of Kells experience was honestly less impressive, obviously designed to spin out the two or three minutes that you might spend gazing at two pages of the book itself, to make you feel it was worth a lot of euros going into the college’s coffers. They could certainly learn from Belfast’s Titanic experience, which managed to be more interesting, more impressive, and much more moving, with even less material.
Tomorrow, Saturday, there is a possibility that I could sell solo as far as Arklow. Watch this space.
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| The elegant museum building… |
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… a bit darker on the inside
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| From the classical campus… |
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| …you find yourself in UEA |
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