Dublin to Chester

The population of urban Dublin is a little over 1,000,000. After a morning of further exploration we made our way to catch the Airport Shuttle bus. Quite a good way to see even more of the city.

Once we arrived at Dublin airport we were in for a bit of a shock. I swear almost all those 1,000,000 Dubliners were there queueing to fly off to exotic destinations. It seemed as if Ryan Airlines have a monopoly at the airport and take their passengers away to all corners of Europe and North Africa as well as all over the UK mainland. The travellers at the gate ahead of us were going off to Marrakech.

Our flight was delayed by about an hour (along with all the other flights) and by the time we eventually took off we were becoming concerned that we might be too late to collect our next rental in Manchester.

I claimed the window seat on this flight and Johnny found himself sandwiched between two Kiwi's. How lovely for him!!! Anyway, gave him the opportunity to have a good chat about football and gave me a little respite.

Discovered that the Rental Car Village is a 24 hour operations and the shuttle bus turned up quite soon after we emerged from the terminal and took us to the Village. The Europcar folk were waiting for us and had our car ready. Johnny's got the GPS thingy in his new phone working properly now so we found ourselves on the road to Chester without any problems at all. Yippee!!! We ave discovered that the

lovely lady we chose to speak to us in Australian English is actually Diane so we are treating her with a great deal of respect now.

Note to Sandra and Barrie. It's not just the food here that is delivered at thermal temperatures. I was afraid to take ablutions at our Dublin accommodation because the water flowing from the hot tap could have boiled an egg, and the pressure of the water coming from the cold tap was so pathetic it was not much more than a dribble. So, it would have been impossible to run a shower that would not have removed at least one layer of skin.

Anyway, pretty tired by the time we reached our Chester digs so settled in and decided to have dinner in house. I ordered what I thought would be a small meal - two smoked salmon patties with asparagus and spinach. When the dish arrived the patties were giant sized and I struggled to eat one, let alone both of them.

Today, 18th is Johnny's birthday so we had breakfast at our accommodation and set out to explore this remarkably intact Roman, medieval, Tudor city.

Chester is completely encircled by a Roman Wall. You can walk right around the city on the top of this wall and we felt that this was an opportunity not to pass up.

Plenty of information panels along the way explaining the various structures we passed. Roman baths. Civil War cannon. A lookout where Charles I watched his army being defeated by the Roundheads and so on.

A curious squirrel scampered up a tree and watched us from a safe distance, look out for him, he's pretty cute. And I was captivated by a

trio of imaginative chimney pots.

Half way along the rampart walk we found an exit leading to the Chester Cathedral. Here we took a break to visit the cathedral which is typical of English cathedrals in having been modified many times.

The present building, dating from around 1283 to 1537, mostly replaced the earlier monastic church founded in 1093 which was built in the Norman style, although the site itself may have been used for Christian worship since Roman times. The cathedral and former monastic buildings were extensively restored during the 19th century (amidst some controversy), and a free-standing bell-tower was added in the 20th century. The buildings are a major tourist attraction in Chester. In addition to holding services for Christian worship, the cathedral is used as a venue for concerts and exhibitions.

The choir stalls date from about 1380 and are exquisitely carved.

I don't usually get especially excited over effigies but the beautiful marble effigy in this cathedral of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, (who died in 1899) and whose feet are resting on a hunting dog known as a talbot, a breed which is now extinct, particularly appealed to me.

The cloister garth contains a modern sculpture entitled The water of life by Stephen Broadbent.