day 12 – kylemore abbey

Our next day adventure was to one of my favorite places in Ireland – Kylemore Abbey.

We really kind of felt like we were lost driving through the Connemara Coast (more karst if you were interested) because it was pretty desolate.  Pretty though. 

We did finally get there!

 
Happy couples.

The view back across the lake

Inside the abbey itself:

One of the owners of the castle had a gorgeous gothic church built to honor his dead wife.

 

Walking back toward the Victorian Walled Gardens Dad found a cool stump to inspect.

The gardens were a new experience since they’ve never been open on any previous trips since they’ve been under restoration for many years.  They were worth the wait.  We’d stopped at the gardens cafe for some lunch and ended up finishing up right about the time that the guided tour of the of the gardens began.  It was a good tour.

Because we were on a mission to find another Avoca Handweavers to replace a jar of jam that my dad had bought and then dropped, we took a different route home.  Will even was able to stop and find a cache.

 
He didn’t know that I was taking pictures with the telephoto lens :)

It had turned out to be a long day so we stopped for dinner at the first place we could find before getting back to the B&B.

View Ireland - Day 12 in a larger map

Day 1: Arrival, Adare, Tralee
Day 2: Dingle Peninsula Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Day 3: Kilarney, Muckross House
Day 4: Rock of Cashel
Day 5: Tipperary and Waterford
Day 6: Wexford and Vale of Avoca
Day 7: Dublin Part 1
Day 8: Dublin Part 2
Day 9: Newgrange
Day 10: Mullingar, Belvedere House
Day 11: Aran Islands