Rain, rain, go away

Well, we finally got our rainy day, although it started out sunny and nice, it deteriorated.  We didn't let it stop us, however.  We headed south into the Wicklow mountains to see the gorgeous, elaborate gardens at Powerscourt.  Fortunately, the rain held off until we were done touring the gardens and having a scrumptious lunch on the patio.  (Who knew you could put mint in potato salad and it would be good?)

(I love the panoramic feature on my camera.)

Powerscourt is a huge estate which was inhabited by mostly English nobles ruling Ireland.  It burned in 1976 and the inside has not been restored, except for a  ballroom (closed) which is used for events. 

The outside of the building is very much intact and the gardens are spectacular and elaborate.  They even have a Japanese garden, but it wasn't as nice as the one we saw yesterday at the Irish National Stud.

The walled garden.  Mostly perennials

Note my wild Irish rose among the thorns here to the right.  The roses smelled fantastic and there were so many of them.  Really lovely.

Once the rain started, we headed further south and checked out Glendalough which was the location of one of the many monastic communities, this one founded by St. Kevin. The battery in our camera died so we have no pictures, but we didn't see much of it because of the rain anyway.

We are learning that Ireland has a very complicated and bloody history - having been attacked by pretty much everyone and taken over by everyone. It is interesting but hard to absorb on the fly because there were so many players in its long and twisted history.

We then went over to Wicklow and saw the sea for the first time.  Not exactly a beach day but still nice to view the water.  We stopped at The Grand Hotel there to have tea and a scone (for me) and soup and bread (for Larry).  They serve unsweetened whipped cream with the scones. I think is has the very unappetizing name of "clotted cream".  I tried it but it wasn't as good as the sweet Irish butter nor the tasty raspberry jam options

So you might ask, how do we find Ireland compared to what we expected.  The weather has been better.  The food has been much better than expected.  The place is definitely more modern than I was expecting.  Walking around Dublin and seeing McDonalds and Burger Kings really drives home the point that the world is shrinking and becoming much more homogeneous.  It is kind of sad that cultural differences are becoming less.  That has always been the interesting part of travel for us - observing how things are different.  We don't want Ireland to be like home.  We want it to be different...and it is, but less so that we had hoped for, if that makes any sense.

We are definitely enjoying it all (except for the driving).

Please excuse all the typos that must be in here.  I find it impossible to do a good job of proofing my own stuff and Larry is even worse at it.  Hope you can still get the 'jist'.