Sunday, May 21st was our last day with granddaughter Ylenia. She found a great breakfast place for us near the hotel and we had a leisurely walk, then moved our luggage from The Alex to The Westin Dublin, where we would meet our tour group in the evening.

We’ve really been enjoying Dublin. It’s a vibrant, multicultural city with very friendly inhabitants. There are so many beautiful buildings and statues. Here are some of the old buildings I loved:

There is also a fascinating mix of modern buildings among the old — sometimes appearing to grow out of, or on top of, the old structures:

Here are a few shots from our final walk in Dublin with Ylenia:

Ylenia had to return home (Florence, Italy) for work. Sorry to see her go, but we were so lucky to have had this time with her. After she left, we met our tour group for a welcome dinner at the Westin.

We had fun chatting with a local musician whose Irish Harp was made in Cleveland!

And our tour group was originally going to be 24 people, but we actually have only 12, which makes it easier to remember names.

On Monday morning, we enjoyed our first tour outing, starting with an overall city tour and finishing with a tour of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

St. Patrick’s is one of two cathedrals in Dublin, but neither is Catholic! I had always assumed the Republic of Ireland (the South, which includes Dublin) was mainly Catholic and Northern Ireland was mainly Protestant. That’s too simplified — and the Irish are rather complicated! Brexit made things even more complicated, as The Republic of Ireland (South) remains in the European Union, while the North withdrew from the EU and remains part of Great Britain. We’ll probably talk more about that later.

Monday night’s dinner was on our own, so we walked to a nice Italian restaurant in honor of Ylenia! Now we’ve eaten Irish, Japanese and Italian food in Dublin, all very tasty.

Our next post will describe our Belfast experience.