Our Irish experience started with 3 nights in a hotel called Clifton Court, on the river front at the foot of O'Connell Street. We were delighted by the position as it was really in the "center" of things. But it was also a classic "old pub hotel", small rooms, and narrow corridors, but everything worked. Our first evening introduced us to Dublin noise, it seemed that there was a siren or garbage trucks every 5 minutes, we eventually concluded that Dublin is indeed and "active" city and nose was just part of the "active".

We "did" many of the expected tourists sights, The Book of Kells at Trinity College, the Goal, the Castle and Nina did a solo visit to an intriguing structure called XXXXX. At these various places we got a lot of Irish history and filled in or knowledge of the Irish struggle against the English for political freedom. It should not have been a surprise (though it was) to see the level of importance our young tour guides placed on the history of the struggle that they were relaying to us.

It was also a treat to be in a place where Starbuck is well represented and I was able to resort to the old habit of "breakfasting" on Americano.