As many of you would know, last Thursday was Ella's birthday. She had originally thought it would be nice to stay in a castle for her birthday but it soon became apparent that we were not going to get that organised (we'll try and do that later on in this trip)! However, after looking through our trusty Lonely Planet, we soon spotted something that looked just as interesting. It looked just like Rapunzel's Tower which was very pleasing to Ella, of course! So we decided to extend Ella's birthday celebrations into the weekend with our first trip into the Irish countryside. We headed about an hour's drive south of Dublin to Glendalough, where there are the ruins of an ancient monastic settlement. Glendalough is in County Wicklow and is the site where an Irish monk, Kevin, (now Saint Kevin) arrived in AD 498 looking for a peaceful place where he could set up camp, relax, meditate and be one with nature! After having visited, we all agreed that Glendalough was a beautiful choice, although he must have been freezing in winter! Apparently, Kevin slept on stones, wearing only animal skins, and for the next seven years he lived as a hermit, becoming friends with the birds and animals. Eventually his lifestyle attracted others and he was joined by other monks and by the 9th century, his settlement in Glendalough had grown very large and thousands of students came to study and live there. What is left today are the ruins that have survived all this time, despite the monastery having been raided several times by those Vikings who we were reading all about last week in Dublinia! The monastery was also attacked by the English in the 14th century and the settlement finally died there in the 17th century.
It was amazing to walk around the ruins of this settlement and to see the gravestones amongst the ruins, some of which were so old that they were sunken into the ground and unable to be read, others looked quite modern and dated from the 21st century. Below, Pia and Ella stand at the main gateway to the settlement - the place where the monks would enter and leave the real world behind them!
This small church has been given the nickname of St Kevin's Kitchen as it has a round tower sticking out of the roof, which looks like a chimney . I liked the small stone cross at the top of the roof, which you can see below.
Glendalough is most famous for its main Round Tower (the one we called Rapunzel's Tower!) and it stands at 33m high. Ella spent the next few hours searching for tresses of golden hair falling from the highest windows! However, the real purpose of this tower was a bell tower, calling the monks to prayer. The roof was replaced in 1876 after a lightning strike but the rest of the tower is exactly as it was built one thousand years ago. You can see the doorway in the photo below. It is actually 3 metres off ground level. It was thought it was built like this as a defensive measure so that the monks could climb in with a ladder and then pull the ladder inside to protect themselves from attackers.
The remains of the church above are that of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. This was the largest of the churches and you can see the remains of the supports that would once have held a wooden roof. I loved its big empty windows.
Glendalough's name actually means 'Valley of the Two Lakes' and on our walk we passed the Lower Lake before arriving at the Upper Lake. This was our first glimpse of the scenery that Ireland is so famous for, and we were lucky to have such a beautiful sunny day (although still very cold!). The ring of stones below is called a caher. It is of unknown date and I'm not sure what it's purpose was. There are a few stone crosses nearby which were apparently used as markers for pilgrims. Below are some more photos of us all by the Upper Lake.
Around the lake is another church, Reefert Church, which dates from 1100. It has seven princes from the powerful O'Toole family who once ruled this area, buried in it......
and it also has some pretty amazing moss-covered stone walls.
On our walk around the monastery site and the lakes, we were able to see such a variety of scenery - some man-made such as these crosses, as well as beautiful trees (and beautiful tree roots!) as well as small little waterfalls and the larger Poulanass waterfall.
On our walk back to the hotel we were treated to another few beautiful glimpses of the monastic ruins and 'Rapunzel's Tower'!
The next day, we stopped at the Powerscourt Estate, just outside the little village of Enniskerry. This estate was originally a castle built by LePoer (which is where the name Power comes from) around 1300, and then, as it changed hands over the years it was transformed into a Palladian-style mansion in the 18th century. Much of the inside was destroyed by fire in 1974 but some of the rooms have been restored. As we were not so lucky with the weather this day - it was freezing (again!) and raining - we decided to leave our visit of the beautiful gardens here for a nicer day (Powerscourt is only about 1/2 hour away from Dublin). We did, however, go inside the house and see the restored ballroom and looked at the gardens from the warmth of inside.
Inside Powerscourt, there is also the Museum of Childhood, which houses a very impressive 24-room doll's house, complete with miniature vintage furniture and even tiny little books and newspapers which could be read (if they weren't behind glass!) Ella loved the playroom at the end in which she did an excellent job of being shopkeeper and organising her store!
I'll finish off with a few photos from Ella's 7th birthday celebrations in Dublin! Going into the city on the DART, a birthday drink at Les Bruxelles, dinner at Ella's choice of restaurant (Carluccio's), followed by birthday cake at home.
No comments:
Post a Comment