Powerscourt, Glendalough, and Sights Along the Way

For today, I booked a small-bus tour into the countryside near Dublin, with stops at Powerscourt and Glendalough. The tour left at 9:20 a.m. from a point a little shy of a twenty-minute walk from my hotel.

I find it almost impossibly difficult to move quickly in the morning. Regrettably, I don’t have it in me anymore. That’s not to say that I ever have had it in me, but it’s worse now. Therefore, before going to sleep last night, I set an alarm on my phone for 6:45. That would give me enough time to get ready, eat breakfast, leave, and get to the tour meeting point on time, all at a pace that wouldn’t excessively challenge my morning lethargy. Slightly challenging, but not excessively.

I woke up before the alarm went off, looked at the time, and saw it was 7:21. I loudly cursed my iPhone for not sounding the alarm.

Then, I looked at the alarm setting and saw it wasn’t my phone’s fault. Sometimes, users can be such idiots. I got the numbers right, but I apparently didn’t look at the AM/PM setting.

I apologized profusely to my iPhone for yelling at it. Technology can be so sensitive about that sort of thing. Most people don’t know that, which will get them in trouble when technology completes its takeover of the world.

I pushed myself beyond what I thought was possible and made it to the tour’s meeting point with time to spare.

A bit of an aside, here. The driver of the small bus (it accommodates only 18 passengers) gave a running commentary during the outbound route. In fact, he talked almost non-stop. Before we got to each stop, he told us about it and what there was to do there, but he didn’t guide us through the sites. On the way back from the last stop, he drove along highways with little to note on the way, so he remained mostly silent until we got back to Dublin, where he resumed his commentary.

The problem is I don’t know whether to refer to him as a bus driver or a tour guide. Considering his lengthy, entertaining, informative patter, “bus driver” doesn’t do him justice, but because he didn’t lead us through the attractions, calling him a “tour guide” might be misleading.

I have an atrocious memory for names. I’d like to blame it on my advanced age, but the truth is I’ve had the problem all my life. Unless it’s someone I’ve met, say, half a dozen times, I won’t remember their name for more than, roughly, 11.5234 seconds after they or someone else told it to me. It’s embarrassing.

The point is, if I could remember the driver/guide’s name I’d tell you that and not have to decide whether to refer to him as the bus driver or the tour guide henceforth. But I can’t. So, because “bus driver” doesn’t do him justice, I’ll call him the tour guide despite him not guiding us through the stops.

Powerscourt House and Gardens

In 1730, the first Viscount of Powerscourt commissioned the construction of Powerscourt House. “House” is an overly modest term for it. “Palatial mansion” better fits it.

In 1961, a wealthy family bought the estate. In 1974, they completed a refurbishment of the mansion so they could add it as another feature along with the mansion’s gardens that they already used as a tourist attraction.

Almost as soon as they finished the refurbishment, a fire destroyed the mansion.

They’ve since rebuilt it, but the only facilities open to the general public in the mansion are the ticket desk, a few small shops, a café, washrooms, and a small, informal theatre. The theatre plays a short video about Powerscourt House on a continuous loop. That is to say, the video is on a continuous loop, not Powerscourt House. But you’re clever people and probably figured that out yourselves.

The mansion looks impressive on the outside, but there’s not much for tourists to see or do inside. To the mind of this tourist, the principal attraction is the gardens of Powerscourt House.

Powerscourt Gardens

The formal gardens at Powerscourt are large and beautiful. According to the tour guide, National Geographic voted Powerscourt the third best gardens in either Europe or the world, I forget which. Again, according to the guide, the two ahead of it are Versailles, outside of Paris, and Kew Gardens in London. I’ve been to Versailles (it was before I started this journal; so don’t look for it here). From what I remember, I would indeed rank it somewhat ahead of Powerscourt Gardens. I’ve been to London, but I don’t remember visiting Kew Gardens.

Whatever. The Powerscourt Gardens are very attractive and well worth the visit.

In addition to the flowers, trees, and lawns that one expects in gardens, this one also contains ponds, fountains, a few statues, a small old tower, and a pet cemetery.

Powerscourt organizes its gardens into sections: A Japanese garden, an Italian garden, and a walled garden. It also offers some well-treed areas, lawns and flower beds outside of the formal garden sections.

Off in the not-to-distant background, Ireland’s pointy-peaked Sugarloaf Mountain serves as a backdrop to the gardens. (Not to be confused with Brazil’s more famous Sugarloaf Mountain.)

Oh, that small old tower I mentioned? Stairs wind up the interior of it. Climbing them provides an opportunity to view the surrounding treetops and catch a glimpse through the trees of Sugarloaf Mountain. But there are plenty of better views of the mountain to be had elsewhere in the gardens.

A path surrounds the tower, and a parapet edges most of the outside of the path. Old cannons sit in the notches of the parapet. As best I could tell, given the surroundings, all the canons would be able to do is blow the tops off of some trees. But maybe the area was less forested when the property needed defending. I don’t know.

Glendalough

The Gaelic “Glendalough” translates to “valley with two lakes” in English. Not surprisingly, Glendalough National Park contains a valley with two lakes, a lower lake and an upper lake. I don’t know how much of the surrounding mountains are also part of the park.

The tour guide left us off in a parking lot about a twenty-minute walk from the furthest lake, the upper lake. He gave us almost an hour and a half to explore.

The path to the upper lake first passes through the ruins of a monastic village and cemetery dating from the sixth century. It then passes by the lower lake, with a short path leading to it.

Past the monastic village, the full length of the path to the upper lake is through a calming forest.

The whole area is beautiful. The lakes are nestled in the verdant valley. The valley is surrounded by mountains, as valleys have a wont to be. The hillsides are well-forested and lush. And the lakes are delightful and peaceful.

There is so much sumptuous green of varying hues in this country, That’s not a complaint in any way. Well, almost no way. The rain I probably have ahead of me so the country can sustain its green is not something I relish. As of yet, I haven’t experienced much precipitation here. But the forecast isn’t promising in that regard.

Along the Way

There was a lot to see along the way and the tour guide described much of it as he drove.

He talked about bogs as we passed abundant bog-lands. The water content of bogs. (Usually a lot, but it can vary.) The carbon content of them. (They are great carbon stores.) What happens when they harvest peat from bogs. (They dry out.) The restoration of bogs. (They’re doing a lot of it in the area by placing biodegradable absorbent material in the cuts.)

He went into a lot more detail, but I don’t want to bog this blog down with the minutiae, for Pete’s sake. (Sorry. I stole and paraphrased those puns from the tour guide. They weren’t the only puns he employed during the tour. Not all of them were about bogs.)

In addition to bogs, we also saw mountains, hills, fields, some sheep, and a small number of towns and villages along the way.

The sheep grazed in the fields, right up to the side of the road. The sheep next to the road grazed languidly, seemingly as oblivious to the cars passing by as the ones much farther away in the fields.

I didn’t take any pictures through the window of the bus because the windows were tinted. That, combined with the reflections of the glass would have made for poor snaps.

However, the tour guide made three stops along the way between Powerscourt and Glendalough. The first was in the smallest of small towns, at a nice little restaurant. He gave us time to buy and eat lunch at that stop. I didn’t take any pictures there.

The other two stops were briefer and primary just for us to get out, walk a few steps, take in the view, and snap pictures. I took advantage of those opportunities.

I’ll mention the second stop first because my narrative on it is much shorter. Let’s get that over with, shall we? It was at a small, pretty lough (the Irish equivalent of the Scottish loch), Lough Tay. In the tour guide’s mind, the most notable aspect of Lough Tay is the beach that fringes one end of it.

Most of the beach’s sand is white, but there is a narrow band by the water that’s a dark brown/amber colour. To the tour guide, it looks like the head on a mug of Guinness.

The first brief stop was at a small, old stone bridge. The tour guide repeatedly called it the “P.S. I Love You Bridge.” He never called it anything else.

The bridge appeared in the 2007 film “P.S. I Love You.” According to the tour guide, since then, every tour in the area has to stop there.

The bridge is one lane wide. The road on either end of the bridge is barely two lanes wide. When our small bus arrived, a few cars were already parked off to one side of the road past both ends of the bridge, but without enough shoulder to pull entirely off the road. It wouldn’t have taken many more vehicles to create a traffic jam.

For all that, the bridge isn’t spectacular. In addition to being narrow, it’s short. It merely spans a small stream. It’s attractive, in a handsomely quaint way, but it’s nothing to write home about, particularly in these days of online journals. Why bother writing home? Just let everyone back home come here and read it.

I guess that’s what happens when a bridge becomes famous. The paparazzi and common folk fans won’t give it so much as a moment of peace and privacy. I don’t know if the other bridges around there are envious of the fame of the “P.S. I Love You” bridge, or if they’re glad they’re not it. Fame has its burdens. Or so I imagine. How would I know?

Most of the people on the bus were familiar with it, but I haven’t seen the movie. So I wasn’t starstruck by the bridge’s presence. Rather than being upset that I treated it like any other bridge of similar quality, I think it appreciated that as it’s likely tired of all of the attention.

(Yes, I know. I should probably see someone about my tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. Although, what I said above about technology eventually taking over? Well, never mind. Inanimate technology might get upset if I talk about that too much in public. Just be as nice as you can be to technology; old or new; digital or analog. That’s the last thing I’ll say about the subject here.)

Oh, because I didn’t see the movie, I have no idea if I filmed it from its good side, the one seen in the film. Or maybe both sides appeared in the movie. I don’t know. But if you’re a “P.S. I Love You” fan and you don’t recognize the bridge, maybe I photographed it from the wrong side. Or maybe it wasn’t as prominent in the film as the hype from the tour guide made me think it was.

That brings me to the end of this post, except to say that it was a very enjoyable, relaxing, scenic day.