Trip to Ireland and France, Day 3, Saturday February 14th

Thankfully, Gordon was feeling much better on Saturday, so the four of us - me, Gordon, Aisling and Nan - headed up to a beautiful place in the Wicklow mountains, Glendalough. We met Orla, Joe and the kids, Colm and Daniel, up there.

This was Gordon's first long drive since we got to Ireland. He did well with driving on the left, and with the roundabouts. There are lots of motorways in Ireland that have been built recently, so it makes driving out of Dublin much easier. We took the M50 motorway, which is actually a toll road, into County Wicklow, and then got off onto older country roads close to Glendalough. We drove through two little towns, Lara and Roundwood. We stopped in Lara and picked up some lunch in the grocery store. Gordon and I had the Irish culinary treat, a sausage roll. Nan bought a little bottle of wine to eat with lunch, which she proceeded to open in the car, which is illegal even in Ireland. We headed up to Glendalough and parked, and waited for Orla and Joe.

Glendalough, which translated from Ireland means "glen of the two lakes" is an old monk "city" in the Wicklow mountains. It's a great spot as it is both naturally beautiful being relatively high up in the Wicklow mountains and it has the two beautiful lakes, and it is historically interesting as it has churches, cemeteries and a round tower, which date from the 11th century on. Also, there was actually snow on the mountains, which is quite unusual in Ireland, as we get very little snow, and our higher elevations aren't actually that high (under 2000 feet in the Wicklow mountains, for example). We walked along the trails, and first visited the cemetery, church and round tower. It is fascinating looking at old gravestones, and many of these dated back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Naturally, some were pretty weatherbeaten, but we could read the inscriptions on many. The Round Tower is interesting too. The door is about 15-20 feet off the ground, and that serves two purposes. First, the monks stored treasures in the Round Tower, so it was harder for local people to break in and steal things if the tower itself was pretty inaccessible. Secondly, if they were attacked by invaders, the monks would climb the ladded up to the door, then pull it up and try to wait out the invaders.

The two lakes are very lovely, and the trails around them are very nice, with some small waterfalls. There's a larger waterfall on the opposite side of the upper lake, but that's quite a hike and with all the kids, we just couldn't take it on. But we enjoyed the scenery on our walk . The river was flowing pretty fast, probably due to the snow, and Aisling enjoyed leaning over and drinking some of the very clear water from it.

When we were finished at Glendalough, we headed back to Roundwood and had lunch/dinner at the Roundwood Inn. It was very good, Gordon had venison and Aisling had duck. We didn't see Bono there, however (apparently he's a regular). We headed home, and Aisling spent the night with her cousins, while Gordon and I went to visit my sister Paula and her husband Hubert. Paula's mother-in-law, Breda, who is quite a character, was there, and regaled us with stories from her past, claiming to be related to the well-known Irish rebel, Harry Boland. (google him)