Irland and Wales in 4 days!
We had a perfect sail with good wind from Isles of Scilly until we arrived at the coast of Ireland, then the wind dropped and we had to motorsail for a while. We arrived in Dun Laoghaire and got a berth in the marina there.
Dublin
Do you remember Courtney, who we met on Naxos last Christmas? She is living in Galway, Irland, and when we arrived in Dun Laoghaire I contacted her and asked her if she was still in Irland. Yes she was, but we were lucky because two days later she was travelling to Colombia to her brothers wedding! She came to Dublin to see us and we had lunch together. It was so nice to see her again!
And if you don`t remember her or haven`t followed us for that long, you can read about it here:
After lunch we walked around in Dublin. It was a little bit of rain and it was cold so not many photos.
***
***
***
***
We love Irish music so we had one plan for Dublin – Go to a bar with Irish music!! And we did!
Due to the weatherforcast we couldn`t stay for long in Dublin, so we decided to join a touristbus with guide to Glendalough, Wiclow and Kilkenny to see a little bit more before leaving. It was almost the same price as renting a car…. You can find this guided trip on Tripadvisor:
Glendalough
Glendalough is home to one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland. This early Christian monastic settlement was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and from this developed the “Monastic City”. Most of the buildings that survive today date from the 10th through 12th centuries. Despite attacks by Vikings over the years, Glendalough thrived as one of Ireland’s great ecclesiastical foundations and schools of learning until the Normans destroyed the monastery in 1214 A.D. and the dioceses of Glendalough and Dublin were united.
It is a beautiful place for hiking and we met a lot of people with backpacks ready for the mountains.
***
***
Visitor Centre
There are two lakes, Lower lake and Upper lake.
The Upper Lake.
St. Kevin’s Church better known as St. Kevin’s Kitchen is a nave-and-chancel church of the 12th century. It is called St Kevin’s kitchen because people believed that the bell tower was a chimney to a kitchen but really no food was ever cooked there. This stone-roofed building originally had a nave only, with entrance at the west end and a small round-headed window
***
The Cathedral is the largest of the seven churches in Glendalough. It was built in several phases from the 10th through the early 13th century. Large mica schist stones, which form the foundation up to the height of the west doorway, were re-used from an earlier smaller church. The earliest part is the nave with antae for supporting the wooden roof. The chancel, sacristy, and north door were added in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The north doorway to the nave also dates from this period. Inside there is a wall cupboard, a stone font, many grave slabs, and the remains of a decorated arch.
Glendalough Roundtower
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’s monastery. The conical roof had to be replaced in 1876 when it was struck by lightning. The towers were called “Cloigtheach”, 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 for approaching monks and pilgrims.
It is not possible to go inside. The entrance is 3,5 meter above groundlevel to protect themselves against invadors.
A huge celtic cross.
A tame deer was walking around us, Astor manage to pet it.
Our next stop was Wiclow National Park:
Wicklow Mountains National Park stretches across almost 23,000 hectares south of Dublin. The largest of Ireland’s National Parks and the only one in the east, Wicklow features wide-open vistas, winding mountain roads and fast-flowing streams that descend into the deep lakes of the wooded valleys, including St Kevin’s monastic settlement at Glendalough.
The weather could change quickly!
We visited this farmer to see how he was working with his sheepdog. He told us that he had won the Internation Championship several times, but unfortunately we can`t find anything about that, so I can`t garantee it 🙂
***
Here you can see a video of the dog collecting the sheeps.
Kilkenny
The last stop was Kilkenny, a town a little bit south of Dublin.
***
I really liked this town, it was cozy and had a lot of shops and restaurants.
***
Nore river and you can see a bit of Kilkenny Castle.
I have never heard about Hurling before, but our guide could tell us everything about it:
Hurling is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland’s native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of players and much terminology. The same game played by women is called camiogie, which shares a common Gaelic root.
***
***
***
Kilkenny Castle
In Kilkenny we found a perfect shop and both of us did some shopping.
I will never freeze again!
Holyhead, Wales
We should have had more time in Ireland, but the wind decided it was the perfect day to sail over to Wales. We had a plan to go to Holyhead on the island of Anglesey, we thought that should be a good bay to stay in. We arrived late afternoon and took a mooringbouy.
A boat from the yachtclub came by to say hello and told us it would be windy the next day. Instead of using dinghys ashore here, they have a boat to pick up guests from the boats.
So the next morning I called the yachtclub and they came to pick us up. Ashore we met our friend Phil, who we met on Erikousa and Paxos in Greece. He was originally from England but since we met he and his wife has moved to Wales, just 20 minutes drive from Holyhead.
He met us with his car and he took us to the South Stack lighthouse. We didn`t walk all the way down.
Phil in the red jacket and I in the pink one 🙂
***
We went to Sea Shanty Cafe where we had lunch together. Absolutely worth a visit, it is like a museum, and the food is very good!
If you like to see more of what we did together with Phil, check this previous post from Paxos:
So many details in this restaurant!
After lunch he took us to his place on the countryside.
The cows is his neighbours!
Phil had planted many trees and when they grow up it will look like a big tree from above. And it will also be like a labyrinth.
Lyn and Phil outside their lovely house. It was really nice to see your place. Hopefully we will meet again soon, you are welcome to visit us in Norway 🙂
Their daughter is building up a yoga business on this property and if you are interested you can check out her web site:
https://www.angleseywellbeing.co.uk/yoga-classes-anglesey
Lyn drove us back to Holyhead and we reached at the very last moment the last boatride for the day. Due to the weather it would be no boats later that day.
Many boats in this bay and in southerly winds it is perfect here. But in northerlies the waves is coming stright into the bay. But this time all went well. Some years ago the weather destroid the marina here and they haven`t build it up again.
The breakwater is the longest one in UK, 2,7 km long!!
The day we arrived it was a Norwegian cruiseship here, and the next day there were another one. You also have public boats going to Dublin.
The next day the wind calmed down and we could go ashore again. That day we had a meeting with Sarah and Dafydd, who lives in Wales. They have a cabin (or two) in Norway and we met at the very first time at my job, the touristinformation in Florø. We have met many times since that, and last time was when we visited them in Wales in Easter 2019. It was so lovely to see them again. They hadn`t been in Holyhead before so we had to be their guides! We made it easy and took them to the same restaurant as we went the day before together with Phil.
It was a beautiful day and we had a stop at the beach just outside the restaurant.
Beautiful place! It was so nice to see Sarah and Dafydd again, and hopefully we will see them soon in Norway!
The small brown boat is the taxi from the yacht club. They were really kind and if you are sailing in this area and wondering about where to stop, stop here!!
Here you can read about our last trip to Wales, in Easter 2019: (unfortunately in Norwegian)
https://lailasturblogg.blogspot.com/2019/05/pasketur-til-wales.html
Here you can see our track from Plymoth, over to Isles of Scilly, north to Dublin and then over to Holyhead.
Next time we continue our sailing north!
