Day 18: Cooking with St. Kevin

History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.
-Winston Churchill

Yesterday I went on the Wild Wicklow Tour with Norah, Katie, Mae and Abby. It was fantastic, definitely the best way to see the beautiful mountain town on a budget! We boarded the tour bus at quarter to nine, did a brief tour of the city and then headed to the hills until around six o'clock. I'll provide some visuals to accompany the tour's itinerary...

At the Irish Sea, the salty breeze made it a bit chilly!

Norah (and Mae) at the James Joyce tour at Sandymount. The tower is in the first episode of Ulysses. Norah is actually taking a class on James Joyce at Trinity so this was basically a pilgrimmage for her.

View of the beach. Believe it or not we saw quite a few locals taking a dip! It's February!

Palm trees in Ireland? You were right Papa! Because of its unique (schizophrenic) weather tropical and temperate plants grow side by side. Thanks to Steven, our tour guide, for that handy bit of info.

Nice scarves.

View of the Wicklow Mountains and Guiness lake! Scenes from P.S. I Love You, Leap Year, and Brave Heart were all filmed in these mountains.

Mountain girl.

A post wouldn't be complete without a food picture! Fantastic stew at a pub in the mountains, served over mashed potatoes. Real stick to yer bones food.

The graveyard at the Glendalough monastic ruins.

The monastic cathedral on an actually sunny day! Even though it's a 1,000 years old, the majority of the structure is still standing.

Hanging with St. Kevin. Nextdoor to the cathedral is a small building called St. Kevin's Kitchen.

View from the bottom of a Viking look out tower. There are around 60 of them left around Ireland.

The second lake at Glendalough. That sunny nook in the distance is St. Kevin's bed, he often retired there to be on his own. Supposively it was the last place he was ever seen in Ireland.

It was quite an adventure! After getting that taste of the country I'm already looking through tour books to see where I can go next! I can't explain how awesome it is to see ancient ruins, walk through the house of saint, Glendalough is an amazing place.