Day 20 - July 26

We had got up at 7:30am to see the cows being milked and although we could hear them and smell them we couldn't actually find the place to be. Instead we had an amazing breakfast in the dining room set up with a massive sideboard holding all sorts of wonderful things.  We wandered around the castle gardens after breakfast and had a quick look at the castle. 

Unfortunately there was something in it that freaked me out so I only made it to the first level. Very old structure with nothing remaining of its history in terms of what it was for or who it belonged to. 

 














Sadly we had to leave this beautiful place and get on with our date.  It was only a short 10 minute drive to our first stop, Irish National Heritage Park. 


This was a fascinating park with the smells sounds and structures from the people of Ireland from thousands of years ago. It was an open-air museum which recreated the stages in Ireland's cultural evolution. Our guide was awesome with tons of information as well as being able to bring the history to life for all of us.
 


After a couple of hours at the park and a quick bite of Seafood chowder in the restaurant, we headed inland toward Avoca, Laragh and Glendalough. These were beautiful little towns situated in the Wicklow mountains. We would drive down a road which was a in a dense forest and then come out into sunshine and rolling fields of different colours. All beautiful!



Glendalough is the historic site of a monastic village that was founded by St Kevin in the 6th century. The ruins were of several buildings as well as a massive cemetery still in use today. Of the grave markers I could read, the earliest date I could see was 1732.  






A lot of the buildings were from the 12th century. It was an amazing feeling to run our hands over these old stones. You could easily visualize the monks working the fields and moving to the church for prayers. The sun was shining and people visiting just moved quietly through the churchyard and oak trees. 






After that calm setting, getting into Dublin was a bit of a shock!  Of course we arrived at rush hour so it was busy. We found the hotel but it took us a bit of time to figure out how to actually get to it!  Once we were settled we headed out for dinner. We couldn't find anything that didn't have a long wait so we went back to the hotel and ate at the Bistro. 

Back to the room to figure out our attack on the city for tomorrow.