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Published: August 8th 2007
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Glendalough Hikers
Us with Elaine and her dog Millie... Were now in the land of the leprechauns. Only a 4 night stay here but it's been great staying with Elaine. Elaine is Chad's (Thomas') sister and Chad is one of Dad's mates from the Harp Irish pub in Tempe. Lew and I happened to visit Mum and Dad when they were having a BBQ with their Irish mates and Elaine was out visiting from Ireland and offered us a bed in her place if we needed it on our travels. We're calling in any and all favours on this trip (especially after the cost of the insurance for our van) and it's been great.
After a "fry up" for breakfast on Sunday, Elaine drove us up the Sugar Loaf mountains to her sister's place. Only 2 doors (or frontages) down lives Daniel Day-Lewis!!! We picked up Elaine's niece, Hayley, to be our tour guide for the day and visited Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. We walked around the upper and lower lakes and saw some beautiful waterfalls and some crazy people swimming in the freezing water. Hayley and Elaine were fantastic tour guides telling us all the tall stories about the place (they actually had no idea but there
Perfection... :)
Nothing beats a pint of Guinness, except for maybe 2 pints of Guinness were no plaques around other than the ones making threats if you damaged any of the sites). We also stopped off at "Ballykissangel" for some snacks before heading back to Elaine's sister's place. How special did we feel arriving to a spread of plunge coffee, fresh baked scones with jam and cream and biscuits??!!! Heading home became difficult as the fog closed in over Sally Gap. We literally could not see more than 3 metres in front of the car!! It got down to 11 degrees and this is meant to be summer!
Monday was our first day of sight seeing around and about Dublin City. We bought a 3 day hop-on-hop-off bus ticket which includes the hop-on tour as well as all local buses and the airlink out to the airport all for 25€. The tour is commentated so we were hesitant about getting off but we did and we visited Trinity College, St Patrick's Cathedral and the Guinness brewery. We didn't get see the Book of Kells at Trinity 'cause it was 8€ to get into the library. We just wandered around the quad and people watched for a while. We did pay the 5€ to get
Temple Bar - Dublin
The live Irish musician's playing to the merry crowd... into St Patrick's Cathedral and saw some amazing artifacts. It's more like a museum than just a church. The stained glass in the place was amazing. The Guinness brewery cost us another 13€ but it was worth it. It's a self guided tour but it's well planned and there's lots of information around. You can even taste the roasted barley which tastes like coffee. The entry includes a pint of Guinness on the 7th floor 360 degree view bar. That pint kicked off a night of heavy drinking with Elaine and her mate John at the Temple Bar in town. They met us at about 10pm and we hung out right by the bar listening to the live band playing real Irish music (including heaps of U2 and a few traditional jigs and reels - absolutely no room to dance though). We shared a cab home and Tony, our taxi driver, even told us some jokes along the way.
The next day Lew was suffering but we had a mission. Eileen and Angelo (our English relos) had a friend, Brother Walsh, who they met in England through their Indian connections. Brother Walsh taught at the same school in India
Upper Lake, Glendalough
Very pretty lake in Glendalough. The only thing else you could have added was some sunshine... that Angelo attended. So, they asked us if we would deliver a bottle of Whiskey with a card to him in the St Patrick's Nursing Home where he has settled in Dublin. We loved having the mission but unfortunately he is currently visiting his sister for a few weeks. We delivered the bottle anyway so fingers crossed, he gets it.
That night was our last night in Dublin so, after a tasty stir fry, Elaine drove us to the dockside suburbs of the Dublin harbour where we could walk out and look across the water. We then drove up the mountain to look over the city lights which were beautiful but we didn't stay long because of the cold and our drooping eyelids.
Today we got a lift into the city with Elaine and left our luggage with her so that we can do some last minute sightseeing and shopping before heading to the airport tonight. Now we make our way to Scotland for 5 nights before heading back to England to pick up our van.
Slainte
Holly and Lew
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mum
non-member comment
live musicians ??
wow, live musicians ? what kind of pubs are you going to if you feel the need to mention that the musicians were live in this one !!! trip is still sounding action packed and perfect, good on elaine giving you a great time. love mum