Hello and Happy Sunday 🙂
I hope you had a lovely week.
This is one of my one-day/half-day trips. This summer, I am trying to travel as much as possible in Ireland and around the country for either a day or a weekend. I was planning to rent a car, but I am still learning to drive and don’t feel comfortable behind the wheel, so instead of waiting to learn and then travel, I chose to visit as many places as I can.
Some places around Dublin, I have visited a couple of times, such as this one, Glendalough, which is a lovely area in the Irish Mountains.
The Glendalough Valley is located in the Wicklow Mountains National Park and has a few places site to visit as a Monastic Site with Round Tower, lakes and valleys, as well as a selection of walks and trails in the area including a very popular local “The Wicklow Way”.
I booked a tour with a popular Irish tour company – Paddy Wagon. They are good. I have used them a couple of times, with a different guide every time, and I learned more about Irish humor, slang, and history, which was another reason I booked some of these tours.
On the way up the mountain, the guide didn’t stop talking for an hour and a half, he was explaining for each area, tree, and even the cyclist passing the motorway 🙂 Irish people can be very chatty.
A little bit about Glendalough- this is an area with lakes and a couple of trails in the Wicklow Mountains, about one hour away from Dublin. The area is accessible all year round.
On the way to the lakes, there are Monastic Ruins that can be visited before or after the lake trails. Well, if you decide one day to visit it during the summer time, it is better to do so on the way to the lake, especially if it is before lunch. After that time, it is almost impossible to be around so many people, or maybe it was just this weekend. I went early in the morning, and by 10:30, I was on my way back. More than 100 people were going up for a hike or to enjoy the lake’s waters. This is one of the top 10 touristy things to do around Dublin.
After the monastic ruins, the first lake can be seen and you can stop for a break.
Walking up to the lakes it is a fresh air and a forest. It is pretty, and I don’t know if it’s just me, but here the forest looks like it was taken from fairy tales:
I had lived in other countries, but somehow, here is different, or maybe I haven’t traveled so much into green spaces.
This is the Upper Lake, and the water was so nice you could swim.
There were a couple of people fishing and other people preparing for picking, before it got too crowded.
I didn’t do any of the trails I had previously done, I think it was the purple one, which goes around one of the sides of the upper lake, and here are some photos from the Archives:
A lovely day out in the nature 🙂
If you want to check the area and learn more what else you can do there here is their official website.
Pettite Two a Pret 
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