LIFFEY! ITS HA'PENNY AGAIN

When you see the world around from a height, its a different perspective altogether. And I don't mean literal physical height but an elevated platform! After all one has gone through life being asked how's the weather down there. The point one is making is that there can be no better raised perch than the upper floor of a hop-on hop-off tourist bus - so pedestrian, so infra dig, so whatever it may sound to some - to see a new city. This family always keeps a day set aside for a hop-on hop-off trip around a new city and even old ones we visit, it makes it easier to take in the layout of the city and then decide on the areas, places, museums etc to be checked out at leisure later. So there we were in Dublin and whatever hop-off hop-off buses we took and whatever lines we took, red, yellow, green and whatever colour, the Ha' Penny bridge seemed to pop up one way or the other.  

Somehow it seemed that you could not step out in Dublin without saying hello to the Ha'Penny Bridge several times and cross over it several times too. It's a lovely white arched bridge that flows over the River Liffey and with Dublin being another old and beautiful European city, the banks on the sides have much view to offer. Of course every guide on the hop-on hop-off had his/her own say on the Ha' Penny Bridge, some very funny, some very boring and some very intriguing, but all would claim that more than 30,000 people crossed the bridge everyday. And that got me first amused and later intrigued. Let me explain the amusement bit first before it gets mistaken for a sneering snort. When you live in New Delhi, you don't need a pretty bridge, you just need a major road near your house to see humanity whizz by, those in vehicles included too. There's just so many of us!  

My interest piqued, I decided to check what Ha'Penny Bridge was all about and the story is quite interesting. The bridge came up in May 1816, one more year and it will be 200 years old. Before that apparently ferries carried both goods and passengers across the River Liffey. So when the bridge came up there was much jubilation but before the Irish could set foot on the bridge, they had to pay a price - half a penny! That was the cost of a ferry ride then and since the ferry owner, one William Walsh lost his earnings, thanks to the bridge, the half penny would go to him. William also happened to be an alderman of the city and so it must have been easy for him to convince the concerned authorities that he should not be deprived of his monies just because one bridge had come up. Ah! to be a politician...........

Amazingly from the 1816s till 1999 Ha'Penny Bridge was the only pedestrian bridge in Dublin until the opening of the Millennium Bridge. It is still going strong, painted all white, which was its original colour. In early 2000s extensive restoration work was done and it was then it seems that the authorities took the decision to paint the bridge in the original all white because prior to that, the bridge was not just painted black and silver at varying times but also stuck with advertising boards. 

If the Ha'Penny Bridge is right there and simply unavoidable, Dublin also seems to having barber shops on virtually every street. After a point I gave up trying to count how many barber shops one would come across within a kilometre range while walking. What is it about Irish men and barber shops? And some of the barber shops have the strangest names. Do guys actually go the The Butcher Barber? Please I didn't cook that up. Look it up and you will find that it is on 12 Johnson's Ct, Dublin 2. Then there is Sweeney Todd Barbers (Main Street). You still think I'm spinning it out of thin (h)air. Hah!

 

The best barber shop I saw will have to remain photograph-less because I saw it early morning while driving out of Dublin to Kilkenny. The shutters were down and what was painted on it in big bold letters had me cackling loudly for quite sometime, it barked a directive - 'C'here, Hippie' and that too below a picture of a half opened old fashioned shaving razor. I tried taking out the camera but it was too late, we had whizzed past. Of course I had to ask around if such a barber shop existed, yep they do in the plural and the shop is called simply The Barbers Room. I tried locating one but for some reason couldn't, could be because I guess I had just one day to do that before leaving Dublin. It therefore goes without saying that I appealed to Google God and guess what, several photographs turned up.So I downloaded one (http://www.pikore.com/tag/thebarbersroom. It was uploaded by lololovestravel) I would also love to know if the Hippies have any reply to that.

In Dublin everyone will tell you to visit Trinity College, besides Guinness and Old Jameson Distillery - very spiritual the Irish! It could have  been easy to brush off Trinity saying if you have seen one centuries old University in Europe you have seen them all but Trinity is home to the Book of Kells. It is indeed a work of art, imagine more than 800 years ago the Monks stooped over their desks turning out that stunning calligraphy and those Celtic knots (fantastic graphics). Just remember that there is a long,  loooong line to get to see it. There are castles and there are bars, then there are museums (especially the Little Museum of Dublin) and there are bars, then there is the awesome Iveagh Gardens and there are bars.....enough to make you call the city Publin.

If one has read a bit of literature and has some little literary inclinations, pretentious or otherwise, it can be a bit of a and-so-whom-shall-we-check out in a city that boasts of literary stalwarts. Not literally of course but their legacy, heritage and so forth. Lets say everyone was not happy in the family (in a family of 3!) but The Dublin Writer's Museum was on my to-do list and it was finally done. Can't help pointing out that the beautiful Georgian building in which the museum is housed was once owned by George Jameson of the Old Jameson Distillery - so spiritual again! There are two floors and a treasure trove of priceless literature which unfortunately cannot be photographed and not without reason too considering their fragile state. It's a very informative walk through the works and part of lives of Irish writing giants through their books, letters etc including a signed copy of Ulysses. Above all, it has the first edition of Dracula and if you are wondering why because the author Bram Stoker was Irish! Ghoulish too the Irish.

 

From the sublime to the subterranean. What else can one say about the Leprechaun Museum, just that its high time I finally grew up? All pun intended. The Irish they say have the gift of the gab, they do and they don't need to kiss the Blarney stone for it. And since we couldn't go to say hello to the Blarney stone, I in all my lilliputian wisdom decided The Leprechaun Museum was a must. For 10 Euros per head, the Museum touted as the first and the only one of its kind dedicated to Irish mythology, teaches you a lot - the most crucial being let myths remain myths. I should have known better majority of the audience wee below ten years, accompanied by their parents. So, you are first given an introduction to what Leprechauns are all about and then you are taken through rooms with giant furniture that make you feel like dwarfs with more stories and it goes on till you finally get to see the pot of gold or rather something made to look like a pot of gold. It is all about story telling and despite the feeling of having been taken for a total ride, one couldn't help but acknowledge that the story teller, Shannon, did a fantastic job. If it wasn't she and her dramatic. fantastic narration and her amazing ability to involve everyone, I sure I would have demanded a refund!

   

 

 

 

Ahem! That's the pot of gold

A day tour can be both exciting and exhaustive but thankfully the one to Kilkenny and Glendalough that included the Wicklow Mountains was fun. If you saw P S I love You and got excited at the idea of Wicklow Mountains National Park please chill, because that's what it is about, bone chilling with a fierce icy wind almost blowing you off your feet. There's no denying that it is beautiful, miles and miles of low vegetation all around and gently rolling hills, but all your focus will be on pulling your woollies closer, trying to rein your flying hair and stop your teeth from chattering. Incidentally before you go there, you cross Hollywood! Not the LA one for sure but the original one. Apparently it was from Hollywood, Ireland that two brothers went to the US to make  their fortune and boy did they strike gold. It was therefore given that  they couldn't forget their hometown and just Hollywood sprung up in the US. Yes there is an exact Hollywood cut out up on a field.

 

 

But before that there was Kilkenny, a small city with beautiful old buildings, majestic castles, abbeys and cathedrals, winding narrow roads, some cobbled and shops all around selling artistic stuff from pottery, woollens, woodwork and more. Not surprising considering that it has the well known Kilkenny Design and  Craft Centre. The Kilkenny Castle is stunning, all aged bricks and regal but its the Castle Gardens that steal the show. Almost opposite it is the Kilkenny Design and Craft Centre with floors of impressive crafts and arts for sell and a restaurant and cafe. It wasn't lunch time but the cafe was really inviting and especially the room at the back with quite amusing art works on the walls and elegantly trying to drink tea was naturally called for. The walk through the main hub of  Kilkenny throws up some delightful vignettes like a bicycle parked right beneath a sign that said 'no bicycles allowed'. There is an elderly man with flowing beard busking and the gravel richness of his deep voice is magnetic.

On way to and getting into Kilkenny

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Kilkenny is also home to Smithwick's the 300 years old ale maker offering an experience but we skip that. There was a dark Gothic structure up on a small hill and I wanted to check that out. It turned out to be St Canice's Cathedral and Round Tower (said to be the oldest standing structure in Kilkenny), an institution over 800 years old and where regular services are held even today.There are tombstones all around and even though there's bit of sunshine and a group of teenagers, clearly on a school visit, milling around boisterously and lining up to get into the Round Tower, I feel a sense of desolateness when I go to the back of the Cathedral and see a couple of tombstones in a corner. I wouldn't want to go there at night. I rather go down and check out the lanes and by lanes again, we do and they have much to offer including some vistas that one thought would be limited to movie sets and story books.

 

 

 

 

Finally on way to Glendalough. The tourist brochures etc will tell you that Glendalough is a monastic city since this is where the early Christian monastic settlement was established in the 6th century by St Kevin and that is also a valley between two lakes. Incidentally, our guide for the day kept reiterating that Kevin, who came from an affluent family and all that, came to Glendalough or rather escaped to Glendalough because he didn't like humans! St Kevin so insisted the guide wanted to stay far far away from humans and what living as human beings entailed but the very same humans he wanted to escape would somehow manage to get to his hideouts so finally he gave up and decided to set up the monastery in Glendalough. Myth or fact, don't know but this much I know that standing among the ruins of the monastery he set up surrounded by the verdant mountains all around, the stream passing nearby, in the later part of the afternoon  there was a feeling of surrealism - the cynic in you saying pure touristy drivel and yet not able to shake the feeling of wonder at what driven souls could do and how peaceful it must have been to live among nature and with just nature.There is also an impressive round tower here and again tombstones some centuries old.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glendalough we are told in Irish is Gleann dá Locha which means valley of two lakes, the Upper lake and the Lower lake and on a rocky spur  near the Upper lake is where remnants of St Kevin's cell is to be found. From the Glendalough visitor centre the walk to the  lower lake is a lovely walk through serene forests. The sky is grey again when we reach the lakes but the dull silver glean is obvious and in the distance a waterfall can be seen winding its way down the hills to the lake. As the water gently ripples and the faint sun rays weave a hazy tapestry the moment is magical. St Kevin certainly knew the best getaway!