Ward Words

Today we woke up without the aid of an alarm clock and made it to breakfast by 9am. If you know us, you know that this is quite a feat. Again we gorged on a full Irish breakfast in Ballyboy House's formal dining room, which was quite literally filled floor to ceiling with china and silverware.

After finishing breakfast and packing our stuff, we said goodbye to Breeda and took a walk on the trail around the house down to the river. As Kelly said, Ballyboy House was 400 years old and had been in the same family for all that time. There were some ruins along the trail from an old part of the house or maybe a barn or stables. We shot some photos of the ruins and the river valley, then headed back to the car for the drive back to Dublin.

We planned our drive back such that we would pass through Kilkenny, which was only about 1.5 hours from Ballyboy House. We parked almost across the street from Kilkenny Castle and headed for the shops. We were saddened to find out that the craft center - our main reason for passing through - was closed due to Good Friday. So were about 50% of all the stores. We did stop in a small souvenir shop where Kelly bought a sugar and cream set and the owner gave us a map and directions to Powerscourt House and Gardens.

For the drive to Powerscourt, we took mostly backroads. These roads were again very narrow, and had a number of hairpin turns. There were occasionally signs that looked like the letter "N" to warn you of the turns. That or a sign with simply "Dangerous Curve." We even saw one that had a picture of a car falling off the road and into the river.

Despite the roads, we made it to Powerscourt with 1.5 hours to spare before closing. We picked up a few things in the gift shops and headed for the gardens. The house dates to the 13th century and had been rebuilt/remodeled a number of times. Signs said that the gardens remained true to the original plans dating back a few hundred years. We took the shorter walking path due to time and the fact that it was cold and windy. Still, we got some good photos.

From the gardens, we hit up the M50 highway and headed back to Dublin. We returned to Glendowan B&B where Kelly was excited to once again see Wembley's doppleganger. This was our last night in Dublin and our plane left the next morning. However, our room (the same one we stayed in the first night) had no alarm clock. There were no spares at the B&B, so when we went for dinner in Swords we looked at a few stores, but again, it was Good Friday so not much was open. We picked up dinner at an apparently popular place called Fingal's Cafe (the line was out the door, and it's just pickup). We grabbed our burgers and headed back the the B&B. We had dinner in the breakfast room with some plates and silverware provided by the owner, Marie.

When we finished and went to our room, we thought to check our iPods for alarms. Eureka! Kelly's had an alarm that proved reliable, though to be sure we would get up, we both drank tons of water. I nearly made myself sick, and the plan backfired anyway as we both had to get up within two hours of going to sleep. In addition to the water, we opened up the blinds to let the morning sun in. Surely between the voluminous ingestion of H20, the iPod, and the sunlight, we could get up in time in the morning!

Click the photo for the whole album of our day!