March 30 - Dingle to Glendalough

We woke up early and headed out to see some old churches that our B&B host recommended. These were ones we had tried to get to the night before, but we quickly figured out it was only going to happen in the day time. The first one we stopped at was the Gallarus Oratory. Built without mortar, this small church was built sometime between the 6th and 12 centuries.


From there, we headed back to find the Kilmalkedar Church. John, our host from the Pax Guesthouse, told us about the Ogham stone, seen here in the foreground. People would come and seal deals here by touching thumbs though the hole, standing on the graves of their ancestors and in front of the church. Some also use this to renew marriage vows. As promised by John, we did hear violins and wedding bells as we touched thumbs through the hole. Very romantic for a cemetery. This church also has an alphabet stone inside inscribed with the Latin alphabet and the Irish alphabet, sort of a a rosetta stone for Gaelic.


After floating down from a hot air balloon, we visited the Count of Monte Cristo's house at Powerscourt. No, really, we drove about 4 hours to Dublin and managed to magically find Powerscourt without any directions. Seriously, we picked roads that headed in the right direction and we actually ended up there. Miracle. Seriously.

The grounds were absolutely beautiful, we enjoyed a stroll around the estate including the pet cemetery.

The Grotto at Powerscourt. Spooky.

After Powerscourt we drove to the Riversdale House, our next B&B, which was quite close in Glendalough. From there, we hopped the stones over the nearby stream and headed up the road to the ruins of the monastery established by St. Kevin in the 6th century, a 10 minute walk away along a path running by a lovely, dark and deep woods. But, alas, we had promises to keep and St. Kevin wasn't getting any younger.


The round tower was built to keep raiders and proselyting [insert your non-catholic religion here] people, out. It never did blast off like it was supposed to and so Kevin's dreams of space exploration died in 618 when he did. Nice nosecone, though.