The Castle and the Cathedral

Burdock's Take Away claims at its front door to be the oldest "chipper" in Dublin.

It certainly must be the best.

For 2.75 Euro, they give you the heapingest load of fench fries you've ever had and the tastiest by far, all wrapped twice in double layers of white butcher paper and placed inside a commodious brown bag. The three men who work behind the counter are all laughing and joking mostly with the girls, but with everybody. First they pour generous servings of vinegar and salt over the fat potatoes and then they send you on your way.

I crossed over to a bench in the shade of the Christ Church Cathedral gardens. The pigeons soon got the idea that I was no benefactor and I was left in chips and bench and shade heaven, recalling my days as a boy in Winnipeg walking down Main Street with a treasured bag of chips from Kelekis.

The Dublin Castle, as you can see below was so beautiful and fascinating and the Church just astounded me.

It was late in the afternoon, approaching the 6 o'clock closing, in fact, and the man at the ticket desk let me in for free. Some mad Phantom of the Opera was playing everything he could think of at once on the great sonorous pipe organ.

The sweet cafe inside the castle grounds, before I began these adventures was so relaxing and pleasant, and I met a lovely couple from New Zealand, who had just returned from a week in their brother's newly acquired and still-being-renovated villa two hours northeast of Rome.

There are almost 70 photos in this group, so don't forget to click "older posts," a designation we might easily apply elsewhere these days.