Jun 26, 2007 - Kildare

This morning I took a train through the rural countryside between Kilkenny to Kildare. I visited St Brigid's Cathedral, round tower, wishing stone, and fire temple. I walked 3 km to the Irish National Stud farm & Japanese Gardens & St Fiachra's Garden. The tour of the stud farm was really interesting. There is quite a process and tremendous cost to breeding pedigree racehorses. The Japanese Gardens were beautiful (although the last thing I expected to see in Ireland), there was a story to go along with the gardens and a trail to follow as...

May 24, 2007 - Dublin to Glendalough

I decided to make a break out of Dublin for a few days. I took a bus to an old monastic settlement 1 1/2 hours southwest of Dublin. I met up with an Australian girl...Kate who was also travelling to the same hostel for a break from the busy scene of Dublin. After the bus dropped us of Kate and I set out for a quick walk along the narrow road in search of our hostel. We settled in an went out to explore some of the local hiking trails. The whole area is in a National Park with several lakes and miles of hiking trails. It is so peaceful here....

Jun 19, 2004 - Glendalough day trip

Well, the weather cooperated. It was mostly partly cloudy all afternoon, with intermittent sun and rain. The bus ride into the Wicklow Mountains was something out of a movie, in fact a lot of movies have been filmed here, usually when they want to portray the Scottish Highlands (like Braveheart, for one). Glendalough, which means 'valley of the two lakes,' was the site of an ancient monastery that specialized in philosophy while the rest of Europe was in the Dark Ages. The monastery had several graveyards and bell tower. Then we took the...