August 7 - To Ireland

We were up and ready to leave by 4:55 am. Our car arrived, we loaded our bags in the trunk and set off to Munich airport (Dawn and I were the only ones leaving this early). The driver spoke English well, and got us there in plenty of time. Dawn rode in the back seat, and could see the speedometer, and noticed that at one time, we were going over 150 km/h. It didn't feel like that, but he got us there inside of 2 hours.

I had checked in the previous day, so we just had to check our bags, go through security, and then head for the boarding gate. It was quite a walk, and when we got there, there were only 2 other people there already. However, by the time we boarded, the gate was full of people, sitting and standing.  We boarded the plane, found our seats, and flew off to Dublin.

At Dublin, we collected our bags and then found our travel company greeter.  She took us to where the bus was located, and when the driver arrived, we set off for the hotel in Dublin. It was a Radisson hotel, very nice but hot inside the room. We had a bus tour of the city at 3:00 pm so when that time rolled around, off we went to view the sites of Dublin.

We viewed some sites of the city, and finished at a graveyard, for a graveyard tour. The tour was led by a local guide who knew an amazing number of facts and dates. She pointed out the tombstones of some famous people of Ireland, who were instrumental in Ireland being the way it is. The chronology of the walk developed the players in what is known as "the Troubles", and problems between the Catholics and the Protestants. It was an interesting introduction to this country and although the wind was blowing pretty hard, we enjoyed the information.

The tour was followed by a welcome reception at the cafe in the graveyard where we met some of the other people on the tour, and got some drinks and appetizers. We were up and off to Belfast by 8:15 in the morning, so it was back to the hotel and off to bed.