This is part two of our tour to Powerscourt House, Wicklow, and Glendalough.
After the lunch stop, we drove to and through the beautiful Wicklow Mountains National Park, which AI tells me were glacial formed.
We drove through the bog, or blanket bog, on the way there. We also learned about bog bodies at the National Museum. They have discovered bodies in the bog where people were fighting and "buried" their victims in the bog. The bog well preserved the bodies. Probably totally different, but this reminded me of and where I picture the The Hound of the Baskervilles Sherlock Holmes story to be set. Our guide mentioned the ancient torcs (Iron or Bronze Age neck rings) found while they were cutting peat from the bog. They are working to preserve the bogs, which are endangered now. Bog pictures from the bus. We also learned about Sun Dews (or nicknamed and name that we heard was Sun Jews), which are like venus fly traps: they catch a bug by sapping over it and live only from these catches.
We then made a stop at this waterfall (with some bog in the background) and needed to make a note of the color of the water. It was brown, like Guinness.
Our next stop was the Guinness Lake, which is also said to be brown (too much sky reflection in our pictures) and was previously on Guinness family property. The area was very pretty. We also found deer and a paraglider here.
Some sheep on the drive. On the right is the gorse plant -- yellow bushes. We saw them on the way to the Cliffs of Moher too.
Then we arrived at Glendalough. We had almost two hours and needed to visit the restroom before we left so not too much time. Our guide recommended a hiking path. We quickly went through the ruins area where St. Kevin managed this monastery.
Next, we started the hike to the lower and upper lakes.
Travis's famous pictures of me huffing and puffing up a hill since he is always faster. I hate these pictures, but this one is not as huffy as normal.
We made it to the waterfall; unfortunately, the closer view trail was blocked off for construction.
This was funny -- the bench was cut into a hedge. We did not have time to see the visitor center. When it was time to go back to the bus, we had trouble getting around to the parking lot, nuts. We headed back to Dublin. More gorse from the bus.
Our tour guide did not mention tips, and no one else was giving one. So, we did not either. After the tour ended, we stopped at Merrion Square Park. Some nice plants and the Irish Defence Force Memorial.
For dinner, I got a slice of Bambino pizza. I don't remember what Travis settled on. It was very good, but a little pricy.
Tomorrow is our last day in Dublin, so I'll do a hotel review and share our last half day there.