Guiness Factory and more ancient tomes
A bright, pleasant day greeted us when we left this morning for the Guiness Storehouse and museum. It's a fascinating place that talks about the brewing of Guiness itself. My favorite part is the lease that Authur Guiness managed to wrangle. A 9000 year lease to be exact, where the company owes only 45 pounds a year on the lease of the land. Talk about low overhead!
The entire place is in the shape of a giant guiness pint glass all the way to the top.
Or as shown on the map
Pretty clever idea if you ask me.
At the top is the 'Gravity Bar', which has the best view of Dublin I've ever seen.
It's a 360 degree view of the city where you can get a complimentary Guiness as well!
After that we took a taxi to the Chester Beatty Library. It is over by Dublin Castle, which we were near the other day, but we had no idea what was in there!
Inside, was not just any books, but a collection of ancient manuscripts. These range from ancient works from Japan, India, and so on.
From Japan was the world's first and oldest novel, a work 1000 years old. Among breathtaking works of Sumi paintings, there was an example of a micro-manuscript. It was a full chinese manuscript carved on a one by one inch piece of ivory!
Along with that was pre-Islam manuscripts, Islanic leather book covers, tibetan books of jade (carved literally from large plates of jade) and more. The next gallery contained works from western Europe, examples from Germany, France, etc. Many were bibles and other religious texts. Fantastic illuminated documents with beautifully orante covers and bindings.
There were videoes showing how woodblock printing worked, binding and other ancient methods of book creation.
Also on that floor was an amazing display of an actual Egyptian book of the dead. Beautifully preserved and intact to read.
And that was just the first floor. The second floor was that and more. It housed centuries old documents ok Buddha, 4th century copies of the Qu'ran and illuminated bibles.
Then one of the more startling sights was letters of St Paul to the Romans written in 150AD. Several of such manuscripts written in and around 200AD, seven or more in fact. Some of the world's oldest manuscripts in one location!
It was breathtaking and sadly no pictures allowed. But I did gather some postcards which have pictures of some of the works so that was close enough.
Since it was so close to five, we thought it better to get dinner. Which we went looking for Harry B', a place recommended to us, but found it named the Blarney Inn. That was ok, the food was still just as good.
-- Post From My iPhone
The entire place is in the shape of a giant guiness pint glass all the way to the top.
Or as shown on the map
Pretty clever idea if you ask me.
At the top is the 'Gravity Bar', which has the best view of Dublin I've ever seen.
It's a 360 degree view of the city where you can get a complimentary Guiness as well!
After that we took a taxi to the Chester Beatty Library. It is over by Dublin Castle, which we were near the other day, but we had no idea what was in there!
Inside, was not just any books, but a collection of ancient manuscripts. These range from ancient works from Japan, India, and so on.
From Japan was the world's first and oldest novel, a work 1000 years old. Among breathtaking works of Sumi paintings, there was an example of a micro-manuscript. It was a full chinese manuscript carved on a one by one inch piece of ivory!
Along with that was pre-Islam manuscripts, Islanic leather book covers, tibetan books of jade (carved literally from large plates of jade) and more. The next gallery contained works from western Europe, examples from Germany, France, etc. Many were bibles and other religious texts. Fantastic illuminated documents with beautifully orante covers and bindings.
There were videoes showing how woodblock printing worked, binding and other ancient methods of book creation.
Also on that floor was an amazing display of an actual Egyptian book of the dead. Beautifully preserved and intact to read.
And that was just the first floor. The second floor was that and more. It housed centuries old documents ok Buddha, 4th century copies of the Qu'ran and illuminated bibles.
Then one of the more startling sights was letters of St Paul to the Romans written in 150AD. Several of such manuscripts written in and around 200AD, seven or more in fact. Some of the world's oldest manuscripts in one location!
It was breathtaking and sadly no pictures allowed. But I did gather some postcards which have pictures of some of the works so that was close enough.
Since it was so close to five, we thought it better to get dinner. Which we went looking for Harry B', a place recommended to us, but found it named the Blarney Inn. That was ok, the food was still just as good.
-- Post From My iPhone
posted by Chris Ash | 1:43 PM
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