{"id":13353,"date":"2016-05-14T18:45:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-14T18:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=13353"},"modified":"2016-05-14T18:45:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-14T18:45:33","slug":"the-end-of-our-first-day-in-ireland-wednesday-august-19th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wales-2015\/the-end-of-our-first-day-in-ireland-wednesday-august-19th\/","title":{"rendered":"the end of our first day in Ireland, Wednesday, August 19th"},"content":{"rendered":"

and looking back on it, that first day was a little bit crazy with the many different things going on, driving and castle and walking around Kilkenny and then on to Glendalough.<\/p>\n

Here’s kevin in front of our lovely\u00a0Riversdale B&B<\/a>. \u00a0they didn’t serve dinner, and the only place to get a bite to eat was a short walk down the road, although it was more like a dirt path.<\/p>\n

\"w586\"<\/p>\n

this is the creek in front of the b&B, which we’d have to walk over.<\/p>\n

\"w587\"<\/p>\n

sheep on the hill in back of the property.<\/p>\n

\"w588\"<\/p>\n

the big stones we climbed on to get to the little road to the restaurant. \u00a0you wouldn’t want to get drunk and then have to walk back over these! \u00a0and if it was dark outside, it would also be tricky. \u00a0i’m pretty sure i’ve never had to cross a stream to get to dinner before. \u00a0it was cool.<\/p>\n

\"w589\" \"w590\"<\/p>\n

the lovely woods on our right as we walked.<\/p>\n

\"w591\"<\/p>\n

kevin on st. kevin’s path!<\/p>\n

\"w592\"<\/p>\n

it’s too bad we didn’t find a patch for kevin, for st. kevin’s path. \u00a0did we even look in the visitor center the next day? \u00a0i don’t think we did.<\/p>\n

\"w593\"<\/p>\n

we saw a stone up on the hill and i tried taking a picture of it, hoping it’d shed some light on what it might be. \u00a0nope. \u00a0the next morning, kevin walked up there and took a picture, i believe. \u00a0where are all of kevin’s many, many photos of our trip??? what about posting them on his website??? i feel horribly neglectful that it’s taking me so very very long to post my photos, but where are kevin’s?<\/p>\n

\"w594\"<\/p>\n

ok, maybe it wasn’t a dirt path, it looks like rock maybe.<\/p>\n

\"w595\"<\/p>\n

we’ve never taken such a scenic route to dinner, especially not on foot.
\n\"w596\"<\/p>\n

after about 15 minutes, there was the glendalough inn up ahead.<\/p>\n

\"w597\"<\/p>\n

we passed all the st. kevin’s monastery stuff, and this is the most famous, according to the website – it’s the\u00a0Round Tower<\/a>.<\/p>\n

here’s what the glendalough website has to say about the tower:<\/p>\n

The most famous of all the landmarks in Glendalough is the Round Tower which stands 33 meters above the ground. It was built almost 1000 years ago by the monks of St. Kevin\u2019s monastery. The conical roof had to be replaced in 1876 when it was struck by lightning. The towers were called \u201cCloigtheach\u201d, meaning bell tower, suggesting their main use. The towers were sometimes used as a place of refuge for monks when the monastery was under attack. They also served as both as lookout posts and as beacons foe approaching monks and pilgrims.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"w598\"<\/p>\n

and even more importantly, kevins’ cones! \u00a0they weren’t open, or we’d have gotten one, even though it was a bit chilly.<\/p>\n

\"w599\"<\/p>\n

lovely and peaceful and quiet!<\/p>\n

\"w600\"<\/p>\n

the restaurant was nice, and we had a good dinner.<\/p>\n

\"w601\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"w602\"<\/p>\n

kevin got a tasty burger and i had a healthy and delicious goat cheese salad. \u00a0with a big glass of merlot, of course.<\/p>\n

\"w603\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We split a piece of their version of banoffee pie. \u00a0according to wikipedia, banoffee pie is made of bananas, cream and toffee, sometimes with addition of chocolate. the crazy thing, though, is that it says it was invented in 1971! \u00a0doesn’t it sound like one of those really old recipes? \u00a0funny.<\/p>\n

i’d take another one right now if you happened to have one on you.<\/p>\n

\"w604\"<\/p>\n

our walk back to the b&b was magical – we stopped in at st. kevin’s monastery to look all around, and there might have been one other couple there. \u00a0in the twilight it was the most peaceful place ever.<\/p>\n

\"w605\"<\/p>\n

\"w606\"<\/p>\n

St. Peter and St. Paul’s cathedral.<\/p>\n

\"w607\"<\/p>\n

st. kevin’s cross – here’s some info on it:<\/p>\n

St. Kevin\u2019s Cross is a fine example of a plain cross remarkably carved from a single granite stone. The arms of the cross are over a metre in length. The imperforate cross stands about 2.5m tall. It may have marked the boundary of the cemetery in which stands the priests\u2019 house. This cross is a fine example of how St Patrick trying to help the once pagan people of Ireland acclimate to Christianity. This was done by combining the cross with the circle representing the sun, because the pagans worshipped the sun and moon. A local legend surrounding St. Kevin\u2019s Cross says that anyone who can wrap their arms around the entire width of the cross body and close the circle by touching fingertips will have their wishes granted. So when you visit be sure to try your luck see if all your wishes will be granted.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"w608\"<\/p>\n

\"w609\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"w610\"<\/p>\n

we made it safely back over the boulders and up to our peaceful room.<\/p>\n

the only downside is that because we’d been doing so much driving, we decided to change our plans for our return to wales; instead of driving a long way in a couple of days, we would find a closer town to stay in before visiting the magical Veddw House Garden, which we’ll get to soon.<\/p>\n

but anyway, so when we got back to the room i spent a bunch of time furiously trying to research b&bs in different towns in wales. \u00a0this is why i like to have everything totally, totally planned out before a trip, so i don’t have to obsess about vacation spots while actually vacationing.<\/p>\n

when we had arrived at this b&b, and the super-friendly dog had greeted us, there was also a nice little cat. \u00a0the owner said that the cat was an outside cat and DON’T LET IT IN.<\/p>\n

but the cat came to the window, meowing, and i wanted to let her in, and to this day, i regret not doing so.<\/p>\n

it’s always something.<\/p>\n

ok then,<\/p>\n

mrs. g. hughes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

and looking back on it, that first day was a little bit crazy with the many different things going on, driving and castle and walking around Kilkenny and then on to Glendalough. Here’s kevin in front of our lovely\u00a0Riversdale B&B. \u00a0they didn’t serve dinner, and the only place to get a bite to eat was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[229,237,236,230,238],"class_list":["post-13353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wales-2015","tag-glendalough-inn","tag-glendalough-ireland","tag-riversdale-house-glendalough","tag-st-kevin","tag-st-kevins-monastery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-3tn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13353"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13381,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13353\/revisions\/13381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}