Ireland, Day 3:Saint Kevin's Hideaway in the Hills

I left my last Ireland post at the point where we were on our way to Glendalough (pronounced glen DA Lock), or the "Valley of Two Lakes." The rain continued to pour but we were going to see the upper lake and our driver assured us that the rain and mist would create the perfect atmosphere for our visit. What a salesman he was! And he was completely right.

We disembarked near the Glendasan River (why is this river's name in the usual order and not said with the "River" first?) and entered through The Gateway, the oldest surviving entrance to a monastic settlement, according to the Glendalough Connect website.

 Two round pillars guard the gate. There was once a building atop the Gateway, and historians have wondered how on earth it actually stayed up there, given the way it was constructed. As before, I hung behind the tour to take my photos, and got thoroughly wet in the bargain. I did my best to keep my camera lens dry but it was not easy, so please pardon the quality of these shots. Between being very, very cold and wet, and the steady rain it was a challenge.

 Celtic crosses, everywhere in the churchyard of St. Kevin's Church. There was once also a cathedral here,

 but all that is left of it are the ruins you see in the background. Cromwell left his mark here too, it seems.

The round tower once had 5 floors, which were of wood, with a slit of a window for light on each floor. These towers were used for storage, for bell towers, and also for refuge in case of attacks.

I had to photograph the stone on the left--it's another Susanna. My name seems to have been quite popular at times, although in recent days I seldom meet anyone who shares it with me.

This is St. Kevin's Cross, carved from one solid piece of granite. The circle on this cross in not pierced. According to the Kevin of Glendalough website, if you wrap your arms around this cross and make a wish, your wish will come true. Wish I'd known that while visiting! 

I was glad to be far behind the others, just to soak in (literally and figuratively) this ancient place.

 Saint Kevin's Church, with its round steeple and stone roof, dates to the 11th or 12th century. Imagine building a roof of stone! Locally, the church is referred to as St. Kevin's Kitchen. It is called that because people at one time thought the bell tower was actually a chimney for a kitchen, but that was really not true.

Yes, our guide was right. A rainy day is the best for visiting this haunting place.

Church, nave and bell tower.

When we left the church we followed the river through a magical forest, covered in moss and ferns, with tall crooked trees, many rocks and hiding places for the little people. By this time I was too cold and my camera card was full so I contented myself with one photo of the river, and deleted photos as I walked so that I would have room for a few more shots.

I am so glad I did. This is where our forest path ended: 

 In the photo above you can see an outcropping on the left. There is where one could visit, if one was able to make the steep climb, Kevin's Bed, a very small cave where the saint is believed to have spent a great deal of time.

 We took a group photo or two and then...Dennis, our tour guide, went back to the bus and came back with a bottle of Jameson Whiskey and some small cups. A tot for all! It. Was. Marvelous.

 As we headed back to Dublin, Dennis regaled us with more stories, and a recipe for making Irish Coffee. We rocketed down the steep, one-lane, narrow road as he took us step by step through the process, waving the half-full bottle of whiskey as he talked. I think there were a few nervous tourists in the front seats.

Our day in the hauntingly beautiful Wicklow hills was over. I was wet through and through, tired and yet exhilarated and full of all that we had seen and heard. A bus tour might not be the best way to see a place, but for this one day, it gave us what we wanted: a trip back in time to the glory of Ireland's past.

For more about St. Kevin, check this website. Stories, history and miracles, all in one place.

Come back tomorrow for the recipe for Irish Coffee, according to Dennis' instructions. Or go here to read a similar recipe.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ireland, Day 2: On to the Wicklow Hills

And then the rain came, just as we started up into the hills.

 Our guide kept up a running commentary as we traveled; the rain obscured the view, and taking any photos as we traveled was difficult as the bus rocked and rolled its way through the countryside.

We passed quickly through the little town of Enniskerry, a place I would have liked to explore.

Rain, rain and rain. The photo below is difficult to make out, but this was a place up on the bogs where peat was being harvested. Peat is vegetation compressed and rotted over the years into a dense mat. It is harvested by cutting out in blocks, then dried. 

 Our driver Dennis stopped the bus to tell us about the peat, and passed around a piece that had been dried and was ready for the fire.

The creeks and streams were running at full tilt. These feed the River Liffey, according to our driver. Water from the bogs is the water used (after processing, of course) for both Guinness stout and for Jameson whiskey, if I remember Dennis' words correctly.

A bit of heather bloomed along the roadside.

 We stopped at a picturesque bridge in the Sally Gap that was the scene of the proposal in the movie PS I Love You. Parts of Braveheart and other movies were also filmed in the Wicklow hills.

A fellow traveler offered to take a photo of us. At this point a stray ray of sun filtered through, but it didn't last.

 I waited for my fellow travelers to head back to the bus so I could get one photo of the bridge with no one on it. It was a mystic place, certainly, one I would have liked to visit all alone, even on this rainy day, just to listen to the water rushing and the winds, and to smell the rain and the bogs.

Goodbye, beautiful bogs.

I was fairly soaked and chilled by the time we arrived at our lunch destination, Roundwood. The pub had a warm peat fire burning, and the smell of it was heavenly. The best I can describe it is sort of like the smell of Amphora pipe tobacco, but not that strong. It's earthy and comforting.

We enjoyed a good lunch of soup and bread; some of the tourists had traditional Irish Stew and Shepherd's Pie, but the soup was just what Larry and I wanted. 

Lunch over, we boarded the bus again and were off to the last stop of the day: Glendalough.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ireland: Dublin at Night

We took walks in the evenings while we were in Dublin. The city was lovely; here is a view along the River Liffey, that runs right through the heart of the town.

A lone sentinel sculpture silhouette

I took this one for my friend Liz O'Shea! This merchant was located right across the street from the Brazen Head pub.

 Inside the Brazen Head, Ireland's oldest pub. We'd hoped to stay for the music, but it started at 9:30, and we were there by 8:00pm. Since we were walking and were a good mile and half from our hotel, we decided not to stay; Larry was tired and his knee, which had been not much trouble considering, was hurting and he wanted to head back to the hotel. No amount of persuasion could convince him, not even when I promised a cab ride back! Ah well, that's what age does to us, isn't it?

 The Brazen Head offered a dinner-and-storytelling night, and I briefly considered it, but  as tired as Larry was, I'm sure he would not have enjoyed it anyway.

 Busy, busy, Dublin, day and night. Many internet and software companies have their European headquarters here and the economy is beginning to recover from the slump of the past few years. The young population makes this city a vibrant place any time of day.

And back along the River Liffey. I like the way England and Ireland both put "river" before the name; it has a more poetic, pleasing sound, at least to my ear. The River Cam, the River Ouse, the River Poddle...nice.

We spent two evenings at Murray's Pub near our hotel. The sign advertised traditional music, but you'll note the electric guitar and the drumset in this photo. We did enjoy the music of this band, whose name I am ashamed to admit I cannot now recall (but I did buy their CD). They did some ballads in the unaccompanied traditional style, and there were plenty of songs for the audience to join in with, which was a lot of fun. The food here was excellent too.

Nice decor!

Our table on the second night. We weren't that special but we did ask if they'd hold it so we'd have a good spot to see the band. The night before we had people standing right in front of us, which was annoying, so we had this table held while we made a quick walk to the store.

 What did we go to the store for? That's a story in itself. My son Aaron asked us to buy a bottle of Jameson whiskey for him and we decided to go get it while we waited for the band. We walked to the local Tesco which is like a grocery store here. They sell hard liquor there, something I've not seen in my area. I paid for the two bottles (one for Aaron, one for us!) and gulped at the price. The girl shoved the bottle across the country and said, "There ya go."

I asked, "Don't you put it in a bag?"

"No," she said, "a bag will cost you 22 cents."

"Really! So, what do I do, walk down the street with a bottle of whiskey under each arm?"

"Yea," she said, "nuttin' wrong with that, is it?"

Now to my apparently conservative mind, yes, there was something wrong with a granny walking down the street with bottles of booze. So I bought the bag. Just an ordinary plastic grocery bag. But I could not do without it.

The prequel/sequel to this story: Aaron said he would put the money for his bottle in my Paypal account. I never looked before we left to see if he had because I knew he would if he said he would. But when I checked my account when we got home, he'd put about 20 times the cost of the Jameson's in there! What sons I have.

Our Home Sweet Home while we were in Dublin. A lovely place to stay, although they sure confused up our tour tickets and a few other billing things. All's well that ends well, though, and it all got straightened out. (And no, it really doesn't lean like that, and no, I had not been tippling the Jameson's when I took this. I was trying to snap and run because Larry was in a hurry to get back to the pub for the music! Yeah, I can blame him for my poor photos, right?)


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Ireland, Last Day: Into the Wicklow Hills

We spent our first full day in Ireland exploring Dublin; we had only one more full day before our flight home, so we opted to take a bus tour to see as much as possible on this day. We found ourselves on the bus with a group of travel bloggers who were in Dublin for a conference on, guess what? Travel blogging, of course. There were people on the bus from all over the world--Germany, Australia, Dubai, New Zealand, England, Sweden, Ukraine, and of course the US. We were a motley crew, but all of us were there for the same reason--all had limited time and wanted to see a bit of the country before they went back to work, to home, or to their conference.

We took the bus south out of Dublin, and it was a long, long way before we left the city behind. It is difficult for me to really grasp the size of large cities like this; but finally we were in less populated places. As we traveled our driver, Dennis, kept up a running stream of banter and information about the places we were passing. The day was gray and overcast, not promising for what was promised as the 'Into the Wilds" tour.

We drove through Killiney, where the driver pointed in the general direction of the Celtic singer Enya's home the former Victoria Castle (bought in 1997 and renamed Manderley by Enya because she loved the novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier). Members of the pop Irish group U2 also had homes along this "south by the sea" route, we learned. After about 45 minutes on the road, we reached our first destination: The Forty Foot, a small stretch of picturesque beach at Sandycove. The Forty Foot was once reserved for men only, but today anyone can swim there.

 And indeed, on the day of our early October visit, people were swimming! The temperature was a brisk 65 degrees, a bit chilly to my thinking but our driver said that the water here, which is warmed by the Gulf Stream, was the warmest it had been all year.

 Sandycove is also the home of Martello Tower, where James Joyce lived for a time, and where he set the opening of his book Ulysses. You can see the tower looming in the background here. I did not walk over to see it, because I was enjoying just being by the water too much.

Tell me, would you walk away from this view? I couldn't tear myself away.

As we drove off, I noticed something very odd. Palm trees. In Ireland?? Yes, because of the Gulf Stream this area enjoys a climate mild enough for palm trees. 

 Another surprise awaited us at our morning coffee stop at Avoca Kilmacanogue. This shop was located on the grounds of the old Jameson estate (they of the Irish whiskey-making fame) and featured extensive gardens with unusual plants--such as this giant California redwood. 

 I have never seen a redwood before, and always assumed I'd need to go to California to see one! The tree's exterior is the oddest thing--it feels spongy to the touch. This is the rear of the Fern Cafe where we had our coffee.

And this is what I had with my tea (no coffee for me--I'd learned my lesson about coffee on this trip)--the most delicious fruit tart with cream.

A view of just one small part of the gardens.

I am not sure where I took this next photo, but it may have been as we passed through Enniskerry. We saw many lovely little villages on this tour, but had no time to stop at any of them. What a pity. I could have spent days exploring any one of them.

After our morning stop, we headed up into the hills--and into the rain. More about that part of the trip in my next post.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.