woodst-wanderers: Exploring Dublin and Dublinia

Today we woke to rain. but not to worry, we were heading out anyway getting amongst it. It stopped to a drizzle ad we went the caught the hop-on, hop-off bus to the Gaiety Theatre to get mine and mums tickets to the musical RIVERDANCE for Thursday night - yay, mum went to this show years ago and I have never been - it seems appropriate to see Riverdance here in Ireland - and I can't wait.

We then headed to Trinity College for a little explore and saw the big cue to see the Book of Kells - we did not plan on going to see the book and so headed out to the fields to let the boys run around and let off some steam while the rain had stopped for a bit...........when it started to spit again we headed off to do some shopping and have some lunch.

After lunch we headed off to Dublinia - a place where we learnt about medieval and viking history of Dublin. This place was great - we did a tour of the Viking floor with a guide dressed as a viking. He was great and taught us about what life was like on viking warships, their voyages, weaponry, skills and living arrangements. The tour went for about 45 minutes and was awesome.

We also spent time exploring the medieval floor and one of the staff members up there saw that the boys were keen to explore and so went off and got a laser pointer so he could talk with us all about the medieval history of Dublin. He told us about how Dublin has changed over the centuries and who the key players were during this time. He talked about where and how people lived and the boys were paritcularly interested in the wall of the city and the that the the cooks had to cook outside the city due to houses being made of wood in the city..........if a fire was caused by anyone of any age then they were thrown into the fire............Connor had some questions about this ......... We also learnt of warfare, crime and punishment, death and disease and even toothache remedies of 700 years ago. We saw the city as it would have looked then, played some medieval games and got dressed up! Very cool.

FROM LACHLAN: Things I learnt about Vikings.

I learnt that Vikings were normally farmers but in summer when there was not much to do on the farm they went raiding instead.

I also learnt that the Vikings that settled in Ireland were Norse Vikings.

Another fact I learnt was that the weapons they used where normally things on the farm that could be used as a weapon such as sickles and hatchets and wheat swords.

As we headed up to the top floor we managed to lose Connor............he often races ahead so we were not too worried and usually I just walk ahead a bit and can find him - not this time! I then went back downstairs and then upstairs again and could not find him. Eventually a staff member asked if we had lost someone as Connor had approached a staff member saying he had lost his family. We said we had and so went to meet him in the gift shop where he was sitting up on a chair on the lookout for his family! He burst into tear when he say us - the staff said he was fine until then....................good learning for him hopefully that he needs to stay with us! Unfortunately this appears to be his main memory of his time at Dublinia! Anyway - great place.........................we then explored Christ Church Cathedral