Glendalough

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Today we left Dublin, we figured we could probably have spent one more day there and seen everything, but we were pretty excited to get touring. We picked up our rental car on the outskirts of Dublin - a brand new dark red Citreon. So we were off, on the left side of the road - did I mention yesterday how INSANE Dublin driving is...well its horrendous, the cabby's are all over the place and even worse yet are the pedestrians and bikers who just run out in front of you...quite insane. Anyway, so we were off - me with map duties and Chris driving. Chris did so well driving that his main hindrance is my sub-par map reading skills...good thing we have about 9 more days for me to get it right.

We drove from Dublin into the Wicklow mountains it was nice to get out of the city. Wicklow is gorgeous, very different scenery at each turn, some of it rather desolate and brown with other parts that are more fields and forests. We arrived nice and early at Glendalough - it was a low fog, but fascinating. Since the site has been there since the 6th century it is just a really special place to see. We walked all around and saw St. Kevins Kitchen, St. Marys Church, the round tower the buildings themselves are from the 10th and 12th century. It was really quite amazing. We also found it interesting that they used the cemetery still for recent burials. We went onto the upper lake - it too was gorgeous. Very windy and still a low mist so pretty damp, we walked around met some really friendly Irish ducks and we were out way again.

We then went to Avoca Weavers which was a little out of the way but it was so worth it, we got to see where they do all of their weaving on their enormous loom. We also bought a lovely blanket so pretty. We had lunch there too and it was fantastic. I loved this stop, probably could have spent a fortune there, so many neat things.

This time we headed out to Sally Gap - beautiful scenery, very different then what I had envisioned...no green fields and sheep here. It was much more barren and windswept. Lots of great scenic views even waterfalls. We also encounted the elusive Irish llama - okay it wasn't a llama, but when Chris said what is that I responded with the only logical guess I could make a llama - clearly not a llama but more so some kind of Irish deer.

Coming down off of Sally Gap we encountered our first sheep in the road. So cute, they all had lambs with them, we are here right at the time where there are just tons of lambs running around, they are so cute. Zoe is a huge fan of the sheep as well.

We finally arrived in Kilkenny at our B&B Auburndale - it is fantastic, great location really nice hosts. We then decided to go into city center a quick two minutes for dinner.

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Photos

Round Tower
100 feet high one of the best round towers in all of Ireland

Photo 10
Throwing rocks which attracted some ducks

Sally Gap
Gorgeous view, worth the drive

Umm..
Who rides a bike up this hill into the wind...not to mention there is nothing for miles and miles around.

Lambs!
I am hoping that before our trip is over that I will get a chance to hold one.