Holiday drive-by update!
So, um, I'm on holiday! In Europe! There has been Paris, and brief south-west France, and then more Paris, and then very brief London on the way to Ireland (photos of much of this to follow), but most importantly for the moment, there's been this:
This is the exterior of the Trinity College Library. There's the Book of Kells in here, which is the (oldest? certainly the most famous) reproduction of the gospels in all its gorgeous, amazingly detailed glory. It was very pretty.
There's also, meh, the Long Hall, which, y'know, is just
I didn't take any of these photos; they didn't allow photography. I might have nearly wept. The smell, and the light and the books and the colours and and and. I might have also sneaked a photo on my mobile, before remembering that I couldn't find my phone-to-computer cable before I left, so it's stuck on my phone until I get home. Cue more whimpering.
They order the book by size, and then by bay letter and shelf letter. The ladders they just push along (noisily, the guard was pleasant and kind enough to demonstrate) which lock when you stand on them. The floor is amazingly unscratched. They wouldn't let us past the ropes, or up onto the second floor, but still, so, so good.
Dublin was wonderful, and in several ways better than Paris (more on that later). Now we're in Killarney, and heading for our rental car and the Dingle peninsula.
This is the exterior of the Trinity College Library. There's the Book of Kells in here, which is the (oldest? certainly the most famous) reproduction of the gospels in all its gorgeous, amazingly detailed glory. It was very pretty.
There's also, meh, the Long Hall, which, y'know, is just
I didn't take any of these photos; they didn't allow photography. I might have nearly wept. The smell, and the light and the books and the colours and and and. I might have also sneaked a photo on my mobile, before remembering that I couldn't find my phone-to-computer cable before I left, so it's stuck on my phone until I get home. Cue more whimpering.
They order the book by size, and then by bay letter and shelf letter. The ladders they just push along (noisily, the guard was pleasant and kind enough to demonstrate) which lock when you stand on them. The floor is amazingly unscratched. They wouldn't let us past the ropes, or up onto the second floor, but still, so, so good.
Dublin was wonderful, and in several ways better than Paris (more on that later). Now we're in Killarney, and heading for our rental car and the Dingle peninsula.