Dublin: Day Two

On our second day in Dublin, we got up early and walked across the city to the Guiness factory. Nothing like beer at 11:00 am!

The Guiness factory was reaaalllly big. It took us a while to find the visitor center building. The building is actually shaped like a giant pint glass. Inside, we learned about the fascinating process of brewing Guiness. We also got to try some!

I love how excited Caitlin looks in the above picture. She wasn't really that excited though. At the top of the building they have a cafe, and you can redeem your ticket for a drink. I had the obligatory pint, and Caitlin had a coke. The cafe had some pretty nice views. At 8 stories it is one of the tallest buildings in Dublin, surprisingly enough.

After finishing our morning beer, we went to a little pub and had lunch. We then headed to Phoenix Park, the largest city park in all of Europe.

It was extremely pretty and very green. They also had a giant, I mean absolutely enormous monument to the Duke of Wellington. It was a ten story obelisk. He is a Dublin native, so I guess it makes sense that they have one, but I did not realize that the British were such big fans of the Duke of Wellington.

After the park, we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Oddly enough, it is not a Catholic church, but an Anglican one. When Henry VIII declared the Anglican Church separate from the Roman Catholic church, all but two of Ireland's bishops followed him. However, almost none of the clergy and lay people did. In effect, all of the property of the church in Ireland became Anglican, but none of the people. So there are two cathedrals in Dublin, a predominantly Catholic city, and both them are Anglican. Caitlin and I both felt like St. Patrick's Cathedral should have been Catholic, since St. Patrick is such an important saint. In addition, there wasn't really any information about him inside the church, which was a little disappointing. Plus, Anglican churches charge money to go inside.

Outside of the Church, there is a pleasant little park. Apparently, St. Patrick baptized many of the Irish right there. Pretty incredible! After all the walking we did, we were pretty exhausted, so we had dinner, went back to our hostel, and went to sleep.