Up and early again, we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the Hotel Minella! One of the best breakfasts on our trip in terms of gluten free offerings that were separate from the other buffet items so no mistakes would be made. After breakfast, while fairly foggy, we boarded the bus to first head towards the counties of Wexford and New Ross, where we boarded a replica of the sailing vessel Dunbrody, to see how it was to be a Famine emigrant. For the engineer: Along the way we passed by the Rose Kennedy Fitzgerald Bridge, which is the longest Extrados Bridge in the world, at 900 meters long, with 8 piers and 3 towers. For those who did not know like me, an extradosed bridge employs a structure that combines the main elements of both a prestressed box girder bridge and a cable-stayed bridge.
At the Dunbrody, there was a short exhibit in the museum, prior to visiting the boat, which was accessible up the gangway! The tour guide talked to us about the features of the boat (it was not a large boat) and how the emigrants were treated. I was expecting to stay on the deck of the boat, as that is what Vinnie said I had to do, instead of climbing down some steep stairs to the deck below when the tour guide took myself and Kathy to the elevator on the boat! Very cool! They had installed a small elevator where the captain would have steered the boat from. That made the experience really great for me! See the pictures below:
Next we traveled some more through the County of Kildare to the Irish National Stud and Japanese Gardens, who are home to many of Ireland’s most famous former, and most recent champion racehorses. It is off season right now so most of the “hunk” or “stud” horses and the mares are not on site, the horses that belong to the stud farm were there along with two prize winning stallions. We also looked at the Japanese Gardens which were very beautiful, however not very accessible if you did not stay on the main paths (not that I wander at all)! Here are some pictures of what we saw on this visit:
Then we continued onto to Dublin, checked into the Gresham Hotel with some issues and relaxed for a while, before going out for pizza for dinner in the Temple Bar area with Anne and Richard. The Milano pizza restaurant we went to had excellent gluten free protocols! Like other European menus, they noted which items had gluten however then they had a binder which explained which item could be made gluten free and how. Then how it was to be served to you so if you did not receive it (for example an appetizer on a black plate) then there was a problem. For the pizza’s the gluten free ones came uncut with individual PURPLE cutting wheels so we could cut our own! That made my night!
Tomorrow is a free day in Dublin to do what we want to do and see. Richard is lecturing at Trinity University and Anne has some things planned so Andrew and I will see what trouble we can get up to on our own!
Here is our trip back to Dublin, ending up after a tour of downtown at the Gresham Hotel.
