A Glorious Day in Ireland

3 months ago, tomorrow, we spent a wonderful day in the countryside and seaside of Ireland.  Since it was the beginning of spring, everything was starting to turn green.  I'm sure these sheep sure liked it!  We rented a car, and Andy got to drive around Ireland on the opposite side of the road.  I didn't join him because I don't know how to drive a manual car. We drove south of Dublin to Wicklow Mountains National Park. 
 
 
On the way, we spotted this quaint Antiques shop.  It was one tiny room with things piled all around you and hanging from the ceiling.  Andy found an old19th century apothecary jar. It held medicinal mold spores.  Sounds really exciting, right?  Well, it was exciting for my pharmacist/husband.
 
 
The guy was so excited to have us come by.  I love that he is on Facebook!
 
 
Once we got to Wicklow, we headed towards Glendalough (Glendalock), the valley of two lakes.  It is renowned for its early medieval monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century.  This is the Round Tower.
 
 
I'm guessing that there used to be a staircase here, unless this was Rapunzel's tower, but I don't think she was from Ireland. :)
 
 
Andy is standing in the Gateway
 
 
This was St. Kevin's Church.
 
This was the cathedral/burial grounds that had the roof fall in.
 
 
After visiting the churches and graveyard, we began our nature hike. 
 
 
 
 

 
The Lower Lake!
 
 
 
A cute, little waterfall.
 
 
Andy took this picture of me from the other side of the stream before we ate our lunch.
 
 
Then he crossed the stream and found a very slippery rock.  Let's just say that his shoes, socks, and pants ended up wet.  At least the camera and phone were safe.
 
 
Then we ate some lunch.  Andy liked the name of these chips.
 
 
Our hike included Poulanass Waterfall.  It was very pretty, but not as big as I expected.
 
 
My handsome husband!  Love him!  Loved this day with him!
 
We made it to the Upper Lake.  It was beautiful!  Had it been warmer, I would have gone in.
 
 
 
 
We enjoyed our scenic walk back to the beginning of the loop.
 
 
Then we headed south to the town of Avoca.  Andy's mom used to watch a show called "Ballykissangel" that was filmed there, so we thought it might be fun to see it.  It took us awhile to actually find the town.
 
 
We drove past an old mine or something cool looking.
 
 
Then we stopped to take in some sights, and Andy did a little happy dance with no shoes on (drying in the car).
 
 
We took some pictures of the rolling green hills....?
 
 
Oh, wait!  Here are the rolling green hills.
While we were taking picture, two ladies walked by, so we asked for some directions.
 
 
We finally arrived in Avoca.  We ended up taking a tour at the Avoca Mill where some machines weaved some brightly colored wool.
 
 

 
 
I love this picture of Avoca!  It was a darling, little town!
 
 
The Fitzgeralds' Pub was where the TV show was filmed.  We stopped for a drink of lime and soda, Auntie Glyn told us that would be a safe drink at the pub for nondrinkers..
 
 
Then we headed back up North by following the coast.  We stopped in Greystones to see the beach.  Oh, we almost got soaked when a wave all of a sudden came in real high.
 
 
A nice reminder to clean up after your dogs.
 
 
We had to go shopping for some Irish sweets.  Oh, I could really go for some Bon Bons right now!  Yum!
 
 
On our way up the coast, we stopped in Bray at The Ocean for some good Irish cooking.  This restaurant was on recommendation of the town butcher.  Andy stopped the car at the butcher's and asked, "If you could have only one meal in Bray, where would you eat?" Then we headed back to the hotel to try and get some sleep before we left Ireland. 
 
 
Our flight was at 6:30 in the morning, so we had to get up even earlier.  However, I woke up much earlier because I was afraid I was going to sleep in.  We got to go on a smaller aircraft, since we had a layover in Paris.
 
 
Welcome to Paris!  Can I say that I've been to Paris if I've only been to the Paris airport?
 
 
We took this right before Andy left me to go spend our last 5 Euros on some French sweets.
 
 
Then we had a long flight back to Salt Lake City.  We even flew over Greenland.  Something is very odd about the name of this country!
 
 
It was hard to come back home, but my jetlag wasn't as bad as it was on the way there.  We can't wait to go back someday.  We would love to see more of the countryside, and stay in a quaint bed and breakfast.  Maybe our next trip will have to last a month or so! Andy still suggests at random moments that we need to go back immediately, he suffered from severe withdrawal when we came home.

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