We left Kilkenny early Tuesday morning for our last stop on this adventure. We made a couple of minor adjustments to our itinerary so we had two nights in Dublin. This allowed us to do a trip to Belfast and the Giants Causeway on the Northern Ireland Coast (coming up in the next blog) Along the way from Kilkenny to Dublin there were a couple of nice places we visited. First up was Glendalough which was located in the Wicklow National Park. This is the only National Park in eastern Ireland. It's in a glacial valley surrounded by mountains which made it quite a change for us since we tend to spend most of our time on the coast. There was an outstanding walk through the woods around two lakes. Along the way we also passed the ruins of a monastery that was founded by St. Kevin back in the 6th century. Legend has it that St. Kevin once drowned a woman who attempted to seduce him. There is even a song about this event and St. Kevin. The opening verse of the song is: "In Glendalough there lived an auld saint, renowned for his learning and piety, his manners were curious and quaint, and he looked upon girls with disparity". These places have been around for a very long time and have certainly produced more than their fair share of history and colorful characters, good and bad! .
http://www.glendalough.ie/
Although Glendalough is in the mountains it was just a short 30 minute drive and we were back on the coast. We stopped for lunch in the city of Bray which is located just south of Dublin on the Irish Sea. The city had a very nice promenade along the waterfront that made for a nice relaxing stroll before heading into Dublin.
http://visitwicklow.ie/towns-villages/bray/
The calm of Glendalough and Bray were quickly replaced by the hustle and bustle of Dublin. We decided we would drop off our suitcases at the hotel and return the rental car at a downtown location instead of at the airport. What we didn't know was that the hotel was on one of the main streets in the city center and that there was construction up and down the street. We saw the hotel only a few hundred feet away, unfortunately in addition to the construction barriers there were billions (a slight exaggeration) of people, bicycles, cars and other objects between us. It created a few anxious moments but Beth thought of a quick change in plans that worked. She put in the rental car address in the GPS and that calm voice safely guided us to Avis! There was a tram station close by and so we only had to drag the suitcases a few blocks. Travel light, it's makes things so much easier!
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| Glendalough |
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| 6th Century Monastery founded by St. Kevin |
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| Monastery Grounds & Cemetary |
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| Along the trail in Glendalough |
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| Bray Promenade |
