Irish countryside

We didn't have the time to explore Ireland as we all would have liked. Since we only had three full days in Ireland and we really wanted to see the Irish Countryside, we took the train to Dun Laoghaire, a costal town outside of Dublin. Then we rented a car and drove to Wicklow Mountains. It was a misty, rainy day but we had a great time. We kept thinking it was crappy weather and the guy at the rental car agency said, how it was such nice weather they were having. I guess we aren't use to Irish weather!


We walked down the pier in Dun Laoghaire, it was really beautiful.

The marina

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, for some reason it just looks so Irish to me.

As most of you know, Kit and I love the ocean. It was nice to be next to one again, even if it was just for a short time.

The rocks were very slippery and Kit almost fell on his butt right after I took this picture.

Nick looking at the tidal pools

We drove to Glendalough an old monastery ruins.

Here is some information about it from the Wicklow Website:

Glendalough (or Gleann Da Loch, meaning ‘The Glen of the Two Lakes’) is situated in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains National Park, which has over one million visitors every year.

The ancient monastery on the site is a fascinating site, having been founded in the 6th century by St. Kevin. Set in a glaciated valley with two lakes, the monastic remains include a superb round tower, stone churches and decorated crosses. The round tower is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the area. The site also includes a Celtic high cross, St. Mary’s Church and St. Kevin’s Church. The remains of three stone crosses and a stone fort are also to be found between the upper and lower lakes. 

While we were here, we saw some people walking by with some dogs and we saw Bosky's twin. He look exactly like him. I tried to get a picture but they were moving to fast. 

Can you see Nick in this picture?

We wanted to walk to the Lakes but it started rain sideways so we went inside the restaurant and some lunch. After lunch it was still raining pretty hard so we decided to drive to Sally Gap to see some of the countryside.

The drive through Sally Gap was fantastic. We saw only four other cars for about an hour.

The pictures don't do it justice. It was so beautiful. the brownish purplish color is the Heather. If you have ever seen PS I love you, Wicklow Mountains is where they met.

As you can tell from this picture it was very windy and foggy. We regretted that you couldn't see more, but it did give it a Mystical feel.

Overall, we don't recommend driving in Ireland with out a GPS. Enterprise found a road atlas for us, (without we would have never made it out of Dun Loaghaire.) The roads are not well marked in Ireland and we got lost for about 40 minutes trying to get back to the Enterprise shop. We finally figured it out and we had driven by the road to turn off twice! It was a great adventure though and a fantastic day!