Tuesday morning we got up really soon as I still wanted to get to the tourist information to book a trip to the Wicklow Mountains. My mobile started to ring at 7.00 a.m, which normally should be forbidden during holidays…
Before we got anywhere we faced Liz‘ breakfast. The breakfast in the ABC Guesthouse is perfect and the coffee was really good. We could choose between Irish and Continental and the Continental had really everything you could wish for.
After the experience from Monday we took the bus to O’Connell Bridge, which is nearly the opposite of Trinity College. No chance to miss that. We were extremely lucky when the guy in the Tourist Info told us that a bus would start to the Wicklow Mountains in 30 minutes and we could get in that if we wanted to. We booked that trip and went to the bus station where our guide picked us up. Here name was Niamh and I was enchanted as I had just finished a book where this was the name of the main character and I thought (at that time) that the name wasn’t a common name in any country. Niamh was so nice to tell us during the trip that her name was a pagan name and that in Ireland nowadays it is only allowed to baptise a child with a pagan name when it is given a christian one as seccond name, so that most girls / women with the name Niamh have Mary as second name. She told us a lot of the history and old traditions during our trip to the Wicklow Mountains where we were finally allowed to leave the bus. The Wicklow Mountains were quite impressive for me at this time of the year as the whole ground was covered with heather and I found this extremely beautiful.
From Wicklow Gap we drove to Glendalough, which pointed out to be some ancient religious site. A huge tower is standing there which is about 30 meters high (at least I believe this is what was told to us). In the ancient times there used to be a church and a priest’s house as well but those are merely ruins now. Glendalough translated means City at two seas and so there are two sees which we surounded during the time we were allowed to spend there. Niamh told us that the legends tell about a sea monster living in one of them which is the reason for a prohibition to bath in the seas…
From Glendalough we drove to Alvoca. This is where one of the oldest irish weaving mills is situated and it was quite impressive to see those looms in action. In the weaving mill there is a cafe as well where we had an absolute phantastic tomato soup and they have a store where they sell products that have been made in the mill.
We reached Dublin at 6.00 p.m again and so I still had time to take some photos in Temple Bar before we ended up in a pub again