The tiny bit of Scotland we did was a blur—in pictures and my mind. Dad’s drink of choice is Famous Grouse so we swung by a distillery for one of the single malt scotches in his blend. He was underwhelmed (although he’s enjoying the FG infused truffle candy bar we bought him.) And they DO have the bragging rights for the largest bottle of scotch in the world on display.
Flew back to Dublin and the official Irish tour began sleeping in Swords. Started the morning with a stroll around town, stopped at the bakery and castle before taking a taxi back to airport to pick up the car. Susan, you’ll be glad to know we upgraded. Twice. Before we got one big enough for four!
County Wicklow included Enniskerry, Powerscourt Gardens (thanks, Pat!), and wandering through the Wicklow Mountains on roads that were little more than single lanes. Sally Gap was otherworldly with blankets of bogs and periodic accents of quiet rills. There was a forest fire somewhere and overcast skies which made for a grey day, but the vistas from Shillelagh to Tullow were just what Dad had hoped to see: farmland framed by stone or hedged walls, sheep—all the sheep—cows, and even some fall foliage beginning to pop.
Slept in Kilkenny and woke to a cool, rainy, fall day. We drove around town and saw the Abbey & Cathedral from the comfort of the car. Greg & I toured the castle. Dad passed—didn’t sleep well that night and the cold & wet were aggravating his hip arthritis.
If you’re following our trek on a map, we then turned southeast to Enniscorthy. Just past, the sun came out and we spent some time walking through the Irish National Heritage Park, a very well-planned and presented, historically accurate representation of the Irish peoples back 9,000 years. Thanks, LJ, for the suggestion! We all thoroughly enjoyed.
Turned back southwest and skirted Waterford. Once upon a time I owned a whole set of glassware from this region. If I had visited then, I probably would’ve wanted to see how it was made and ogle historical pieces. Now—not so much.
Oh. Darn. About an hour out from Heritage Park we realized we were missing the camera. Nothing to do but turn around. When places here say they close at 5:30, they mean it. Greg knocked on the door at 5:32 and no one was there. Found a pleasant place to spend the night and called it a day.
Picked up the camera first thing then on to Rock of Cashel, the mother of all royal and ecclesiastical ruins in Ireland and our last stop before heading to Bantry for our home exchange. It’s a long way to Tipperary but we went through there, too. All the backroads. It will be nice to park somewhere for a week and do day trips.
Daddy’s been a bit funny today. Couple of things he said:
If I were a cow, I’d like to live here.
Going through a small community called Mallow, crossing over a bridge, looking at the water below: that must be the Marsh.
Still can’t post pics into blog. Guess I should just give up? Try here.
2 comments:
If I were a cow, I would like to live there, too.
Oh, Daddy.
Mary, Kathy sent me your blog address - I'd lost it when I changed computers a couple of years ago. Nice writing and pictures.. Linda
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