The Wheels on the Bus

In addition to attending a Gaelic football match on Saturday we took advantage of a rare blue sky and decided to take a bus tour.  It was a three hour tour (insert Gilligan's Island theme song here) that took us just North of Dublin's city center along the coast.  The main stop on the tour was of Malahide Castle which was owned by the same family for 700 years.  In fact it wasn't until the as recent as 1975 that the last remaining heir of the castle sold it to the Irish government. 

It is not a particularly large castle, but still impressive given the fact that well... that it's a castle!  Complete with turrets and 8' thick stone walls!  However the inside felt similar to an old Victorian home.  Very well decorated and with amazing examples of period style furniture that had been well preserved.  Pictures of the interior were not allowed, but being the bad girl I am I tried to snap a few anyway.  It's difficult to photograph the interior of a castle without a flash and I only had one or two that turned out. 

In one of the children's rooms displaying a collection of antique toys

I did however manage to capture a few photos of the outside.  It was such a beautiful day, and we had just a bit of time to spend walking around the grounds which are now a large public park.

After leaving the castle and boarding the bus once more we headed down the coast back towards Dublin's city center with a stop at a harbour town called Howth.  We were able to wander for just a bit around the marina and breath in the sea air!  It was really quite beautiful.

 
One more quick scenic stop for a panoramic view of the North Coast of Dublin.  I had Adam snap my picture in front of the tour bus.  Speaking of the tour bus, the very best part of this outing was the commentary of the driver.  He was very entertaining and informative.  He pointed out little things like the school where Paul Hewson (aka Bono) and David Evans (aka The Edge) met and started their band which we now know as U2.  We also passed by the neighborhood and childhood home of Bram Stoker who of course wrote Dracula.  He chatted quite a bit about other famous Irish authors like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, but best of all he completed the tour by singing some Irish folk songs!