Ireland tour: colours!

Maybe someone, speaking of Ireland, would think at grey clouds, foggy days, rain..and such things...BUT!
Ireland is not this, or better, is not only this. When the light leaks trought the clouds and a piece of sky becomes visible, maybe you will be lucky enough to have some sun's rays. Well, then it's a whole different story. Colours rise and shine in everything. The reason why I speak in these Rosamunde Pilcher/romantic/sugary way of light and colors because I was quite impressed by the strenght of them. I mean I have a reflex camera, and, even more when travelling, I like to take pictures with it, as you can notice ;) While in Ireland, I was pleasingly surprised by the light and the blue of the sky, green of the meadows and all. i have to say, we were pretty lucky with weather (8-22 August) about 2 or three day of rain, a few showers but a lot of sun too!

Let me start from the beginning.
We decided to take this trip during this winter, my dad retired in april, my mum's a teacher, no big problems for days of/holidays and so on. Ireland was chosen as the destination beacuse everyone of us for one cause or the other always wanted to go visit.
I'm going to write sort of a diary from now on,in a few "episodes", trying to comunicate what I saw that left me with eyes, mind and hearth full.

Day 1, August 8th

Our welcome, or better fàilte!

Plane Treviso-Dublin, arrived in Ir. in the afternoon, got the car from Budget car rental and then off to the Wicklows, garden of Ireland. Lovely landscapes and nice places where to hill walk or bycicle! First night and obviously...first pub! At Glenmalure Lodge, after visiting the Glendalough site and cheking in at our B&b in Laragh.

In Gowran

http://www.glendalough.ie/
"The Valley is home to one of Ireland’s most impressive monastic sites founded by St. Kevin in the 6th Century."



Day 2, August 9th
Drove thru Gowran, visited the spot. Second place and second good impression from Irish folks, guides are truly willing to show you things and tell you stories. Heritage rocks ;)

Glendalough valley

Gowran (Irish: Gabhrán) is a village and former town in County Kilkenny, Ireland.

This was a place of importance prior to the Norman invasion and a royal residence of the Kings of Ossory, sometimes recorded as the Kings of Gowran. King Robert the Bruce with his army of Scots and Ulstermen took the town in 1316. James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde built Gowran Castle in 1385 close to the site of the present castle and town walls were erected circa 1415. King James I made Gowran a parliamentary borough in 1608.
The town, under the command of Colonel Robert Hammond, surrendered to Oliver Cromwell on 21 March 1650 following a siege. 

In the centre of the village is the historic St Marys Collegiate Church which contains monuments from the 14th to 17th centuries. This collegiate church was built in the late 13th century on the site of an earlier monastery. It was served by a "college"—clerics who lived in a community but who did not submit to the rule of a monastery. The church was a large and elaborate structure, with an aisled nave—the main part of the church where the congregation—and a long chancel—the section of the church where the altar was placed—and has high quality architectural sculpture used throughout. In the late middle ages a massive tower was inserted between the nave and chancel, and in the 19th century this tower was incorporated into the parish church which was built in place of the chancel and which now takes up about half of the building. There were also several other changes made to the church at various periods. St Mary's is now a National Monument.

just a great piece of art, on a 12th century tomb

Jerpoint Abbey ruins

After that we moved on to Jerpoint Abbey which is a ruined Cistercian abbey, founded in the second half of the 12th century, near Thomastown, County Kilkenny, Ireland.

Then on to Kilkenny, where we had our luggages put down in the new b&b. Visit of the city, St Canice's Cathedral (my sister, brother and I climbed also the round tower outside the cathedral) and the Castle with the gigantic garden outside. We dined very fairly at The Kyteler's Inn, one of the oldest pub in Ireland, where, to give us a nice change, a group was doing the rehearsal of a musical about the story of the witch and I'm not going to tell you more about this, check it ou ;) (http://www.kytelersinn.com/). After dinner with bro and sis we went to a pub where there was this group playing and singing and irish dancers too.

Going up!

On the top of the tower, scared faces ;)

Kilkenny's castle

End of chapter I.