Glendalough National Park meets Temple Bar (and Jeanette!)

Welcome to the outskirts of Dublin! Once Again, we hired a cab for the day, heading first to Glendalough National Park. We had read that the scenery was worth the drive and we had already been into the city on our previous visit so once again, we braved the elements on our own, bucking the ship trend, creating our own experience. This time our driver was Phillip and right away we noticed he was more "cabbie" than tour guide. We were a bit disappointed in this as Harry had been so warm/friendly the previous day, only too happy to educate us on the area. Phillip was nice but he felt as if we had to pry information out of him. He did mention that he loved taking tourists to Glendalough becuae it "gets me out of the city." There was a toll as we left the city in search of the mountains...



Leaving the city...









Climbing higher and higher on a pretty interesting/narrow road...







Hitting the park...great place for a walk with stunning views unfortunately, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a trail that wasn't accessible so we had to backtrack and start again which meant we couldn't make it as far as we would have wanted to. It also started to pour rain (first time that happened to us on the trip) We did end up eavesdropping on a tour guide's lecture about the park and learned that during wartime, the citizens buried their possessions in bogs to preserve them, and it was belived that many items were still buried there...



The Settlement









Yes, the skies opened up on us in a big way....

Would Ireland be complete without a close up of Cindy's little lamb/sheep?? I think not...





On the way back down to the city we hit PowersCourt Estate...



http://www.powerscourt.ie/powerscourthouse

Here's the link to explain the history of the place (castles, castles and more castles) and they are most noted for their beautiful gardens. However, it was getting late and poor Jeanette was waiting for us by the Molly Malone Statue in the Temple Bar (an artsy shopping area of Dublin) so we hit the road.

We had Jeanette's cell phone number with us but of course, it wasn't going through (I later found out Mom copied the number out of my forwarded email wrong) so we were just praying that she was waiting for us...

At the statue, our driver jumped out ahead of us and said to a girl on the sidewalk "Are you Jeanette???" (In according to Jeanette, a booming/deep voice that scared her a little)

We found her! And instead of the suggested hotel, hit a really cool bar for some lunch and a good blather....All three of us hit it off right away (with Mom and Jeanette bonding over some bottles of really nice wine and salty clam chowder) and me picking at some fries (I was so not hungry as I had been stressed out about missing each other the whole night before) Anyway, had a great time at an awesome bar..Wish we'd had more time together as it's a really neat area full of interesting shops/eatery's. As I said, my poor wicklow lamb was on the menu <cry> thank goodness no one ordered it!



My hair is soaked because it started to pour as we jumped out of a cab.


..
Mike O'Toole's









The park was beautiful but I'm so glad that we got to take time out and meet Jeanette. It's pretty amazing to realize that though they may be across the world, thanks to the internet (and a great tv show) I get to call so many of you my friends. Yes, it's a small world after all.