(Last) Weekend Getaway

Last week, we decided at the last minute to have one last weekend getaway.  Can you guess where we went?  (My Facebook friends have an unfair advantage!)

Lots of blogging to do, but also lots of enjoying my LAST TWO DAYS in beautiful Ireland.  The sunshine is beckoning to me . . .

From Loving the Life We Live

The Burren

The second part of the bus tour that I took on June 14th with our friends was to the Burren.  Described in the mid-1600s as "a savage land, yielding neither water enough to drown a man, nor tree to hang him, nor soil enough to bury," the Burren is truly incredible.  I had seen pictures of it, but was still blown away when I actually saw it.  Basically, the Burren (from the Gaelic boireann, which means "rocky land") is a huge limestone plateau (around 200 square miles) in County Clare.   The ground is basically rock with grass and plants growing up through the cracks.  While here, we also stopped by a dolmen at Poulnabrone.  It was very, very memorable to see and experience this unusual landscape!

From Loving the Life We Live

Cliffs of Moher

The famous Cliffs of Moher!
5 miles of 650 foot high cliffs
Monday, June 14
bus day tour with friends Robin & Andy (poor Greg had to go to work!)

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Good Times with Good Friends

We've been very fortunate that some of our friends have been able to come and visit us here in Ireland.   We had a great time showing the country to our friends Robin and Andy.  Robin and I met when we were roommates our freshman year of college.  Who would have guessed that, ten years later, we'd be hanging out together in Ireland?

Here's a slideshow of pictures from June 11-13.  They include a Friday night visit to the Old Head of Kinsale, Saturday's excursion to Killarney and the Dingle Peninsula (yes, again . . . it's a great place to spend a beautiful Saturday and worth seeing multiple times!), and Sunday's trip to Charles Fort and along the coast to Baltimore.  It was good times with good friends.

From Loving the Life We Live

Summer Solstice

Today was/is the longest day of the year.

Here in Ireland today (a sunny, beautiful day in the 70s, by the way) . . .

Sunrise: 4:56 a.m.
Sunset: 9:57 p.m.

In comparison, for our friends and family back home:
In Indianapolis . . . sunrise 6:17 a.m., sunset 9:16 p.m.
In St. Louis . . . sunrise 5:37 a.m., sunset 8:29 p.m.

From Loving the Life We Live

Sing-along (Irish style)

Last night, we were invited by some of Greg's coworkers to join them at The Spaniard in celebration of somebody's 30th birthday. Someone brought a guitar and everyone sang songs all night - ranging from traditional Irish ballads to rousing Irish drinking songs to American music. It was so much fun to be a part of it! If you want to get a taste of the singalong fun we were having, turn up the volume on your computer and listen to these clips:

From Loving the Life We Live

Need a Laugh?

This appears to be the biggest crime here in Ireland:

From Loving the Life We Live

Killarney (and family trip wrap-up!)

The first Monday in June is a bank holiday over here, which worked nicely for my family's visit since Greg was off work.  Incidentally, June 7 is also my father's birthday!  It rained buckets all morning, but in order to make the most of the holiday we decided to follow our original plan and head for Killarney anyway.  As it turned out, the rain disappeared for most of the afternoon, so we were able to enjoy some more nice weather.

In Killarney, we took a tour of Ross Castle, a 15th century tower house which has been restored and partially furnished to give an authentic idea of what the castle would have looked like at the time of its use and how the people there would have lived.

Afterwards, we headed for Muckross House, a wonderful Victorian mansion set in the Killarney National Park.  It was beautifully furnished with period pieces, including Waterford crystal chandeliers, hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, handmade fireplace screens, and beautiful inlaid wood tables made locally in the 19th century.  Queen Victoria stayed here for one night in 1861, bankrupting the owners who spent years building her a special bedroom and renovating their home in the belief that they would later be knighted.  This never happened, as Prince Albert died only months later and the Queen, in her grief, forgot all about the Herbert family.  It was later purchased by a wealthy Californian couple as a wedding present for their daughter.

Our final stop was at Torc Waterfall, which Greg and I had seen once before when it was in a much calmer state.  The recent rains had turned the waterfall into a perfect torrent, and it was quite a sight to behold.

We wanted to drive further towards Kenmare to stop at some scenic outlooks, and would have liked to see Muckross Abbey, but rain returned and dampened our plans.  It was a lovely afternoon, though, and we were fortunate that the weather held off long enough to allow us to hit some of the major sights.  That night, we went out to dinner at The White Lady (Greg's favorite place to go in Kinsale) and made some delicious brownies to celebrate my dad's birthday.  So, while we lost a good part of the day to the rain, the day wasn't a complete wash! 

Tuesday, June 8 was my last day to spend with my family, as they took the bus up to Limerick that night in order to fly out of the Shannon airport on Wednesday morning. It was a low-key day, just spending time around Kinsale.  We visited Desmond Castle, which was a prison at one time (and the only Irish prison ever to hold American Revolutionary War soldiers) and a workhouse during the potato famine, and which now houses the International Museum of Wine.  We also made stops at all the churches in town, including St. Multose (Church of Ireland), which dates back to 1190 and is the oldest building in Kinsale.  The rest of the day was spent shopping and relaxing before we said our goodbyes.  I was sad to see them go, but it was nice knowing that I'll be home in just a few short weeks and will see them again soon!

Whew!  I'm finally caught up with the events of my family's visit and I'll still over a week behind!  :)  Things have been busy around here...maybe I'll finally be able to bring you up to speed soon!

From Loving the Life We Live

In Dublin's Fair City

Sunday, June 6 was our day in Dublin with my family.  It was a rainy day, which was a big downer, and I'm sure we would have enjoyed our day in the city more if the weather had been more cooperative.  As it was, Greg and I felt like Dublin was just "so-so," but we did enjoy the things that we saw there.

We visited the Old Library at Trinity College, where we saw the famous Book of Kells, a 9th century illuminated book of the four gospels.  There was a great exhibition about it, and it was truly fascinating to see all the incredible detail and think about how much work went into its creation.  From here, we moved on to the Long Room, a stunning library room spanning 210 feet, complete with barrel-vaulted ceiling, bookcases reaching to the ceiling and containing 200,000 texts, and ladders to reach them.  I could smell the wonderful, musty "old book" smell before we even entered the room.  It was heavenly!  As my good friends know, I love to smell my books.  I decided that I want a library exactly like the Long Room in my house someday.  :)  Well, I'm sure that won't happen, but I was practically swooning with delight as I looked around at all those fantastic bookshelves!  Unfortunately, photography is not allowed.  This room also housed the oldest surviving harp in Ireland and a copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which is very rare.

What else did we see?

• Christ Church Cathedral - Though this cathedral could not compare with some that I have seen in Italy, England, and France, it was very beautiful and had an excellent crypt.  Among the most interesting things here were the mummies of a cat and a rat, which were trapped in one of the organ's pipes in the midst of a chase and became mummified.

• Dublin Castle - We walked by this, but did not go inside.

• Chester Beatty Library - A small (free!) museum housing its namesake's impressive collection of ancient texts from many religions.
• National Museum of Archaeology - A (free!) museum of Irish antiquities.  I think we could all agree that the coolest thing here was the collection of bog bodies, fragments of well-preserved Iron Age bodies that were naturally mummifed in the bogs centuries before Christ.
• St. Stephen's Green - a large city park where we saw some sweet, fluffy baby swans

We spent barely more than half a day in the city, but it felt long, especially with the rain (which was also responsible, I belive, for the fact that I didn't take very many pictures), and though we would have liked to see more, I think we were all pretty tired by the end of it and ready to head back home to Kinsale.

From Loving the Life We Live

Wicklow Mountains

Leaving Cashel on Saturday, June 5, we made our way further northeast, through horse country, to the Wicklow Mountains, where we stopped at some scenic areas on our way to Glendalough.

We came to the monastic settlement of Glendalough (meaning "valley of the two lakes"), first established by St. Kevin in the year 570, which dissolved in the 16th century.  In it's day, the monastery was renowned throughout Europe and was a place of religious pilgrimage for centuries.  We explored the sites along the Lower Lake, which date as far back as the 10th century, then walked along one of the many trails to get a peek at the Upper Lake.

The GPS directions from Glendalough on up to our hotel just north of Dublin had us take a very scenic drive through Wicklow Mountains National Park, and we're glad it did!  The views were lovely as we drove on twisting roads through the quiet and empty moors, passing peat bogs and mountainsides covered in heather.

From Loving the Life We Live