More Ireland

On with the description of our Irish trip last weekend....

Saturday morning we took a quick stroll around the St. Stephen's Green, a local park outside of downtown Dublin. Plenty of interesting sculptures, quaint little ponds, a nice walking path...and of course, plenty of green. Oh, and our complimentary breakfast at the hotel...can you say "cholesterol"? It came with big gobs of bacon, eggs, and sausage--which seems to be the norm. Overall, I can say that I wasn't all that impressed with Irish cuisine, with the exception of a pub burger on Friday night, and for the benefit of my overall health, it's probably a good thing that I'm spending the year in France rather than in Ireland... In general, the people in Dublin seemed to have a lot more meat on their bones than in Paris, though I guess that shouldn't be suprising.

After picking up our Europcar rental (which sadly, through no fault of our own, turned out to be a minivan) we drove about 2 hours south of Dublin to the Wicklow Mountains National Park. Interestingly, the place where we went was close by to where the bulk of "Bravehart" was shot (yeah, I know...Bravehart was in SCOTLAND, not IRELAND, but the landscape is not altogether different). Our first stop was in Glendaloch, the site of an old (build in the 6th century) monastic community. You can see some of the ruins off in the distance in the pic.