Forty Shades of Green

 

We began the day with a drive southeast through the Wicklow mountains to Powerscourt Gardens.  The main portion of the grounds is referred to as the Italian Garden.  It was terraced during the 1840's and took over 100 men and nearly 12 years to complete.  The gardens contain a wide array of flowers.  Jenny's  favorites were the two tone orange/yellow roses shown below.  

The grounds also contained a Pet Cemetery with some humorous inscriptions.   "EUGENIE, Jersey Cow, Died 1967, Aged 17 years, She had 17 calves and produced over 100,000 gallons of milk."

The gardens are home to some of the most unusual trees and beautiful sculptured  fountains.  A mosaic stairway made of Wicklow granite and pebbles from the coastal town of Bray was inaccessible to the majority of the group. 

  

After driving the backroads through Co. Wicklow, we arrived in Glendalough which means "the Valley of the Two Lakes."  It is the site of a 6th century monastery founded by St. Kevin. 

We began by watching a 20 minute movie about the the monastery.  As soon as the lights went out, we all began to doze off.    We were informed that the tour wasn't completely accessible and that combined with the lashing of rain, kept the majority of our group inside. We toured the ancient monastery with the help of some kind men who lifted Kelly up about ten stairs.   Amazingly, the rain stopped within a minute or two after we entered the gates and the sun started to come out.    Uneven rocky surfaces made getting up the hill difficult but we were determined to see the round tower which acted as a bell tower and stands 30 meters high today.    Tradition states that 7 visits to the monastery will secure you a place in heaven.   We figure that people in wheelchairs who can make it up those slippery rocks only need one visit.  

We walked among the ancient ruins of  St. Kevin's Cathedral and saw many Celtic crosses marking burial sites.  Lunch at the monastery was pretty ordinary.  Mom had a Caesar salad with nasty bacon atop.  Kelly tried a red seafood chowder that was extremely fishy smelling.  Jenny opted for vegetable soup due to the fact that her stomach wasn't quite right.   On the way back to Dublin we stopped at the famous overpriced Irish-based retail store, Avoca and bought a few scones to enjoy tomorrow.

   

We stayed close by the hotel again tonight for dinner at Gasworks.  Nothing special but more opportunities to get to know the other travelers in our group.  It is now 10:10 pm and the sun is just barely going down.  The rooms have no A/C or ventilation so we slept with the windows open.  The sun comes up around 4:30 but today we didn't even notice we were so tired.