Dublin Day 2

On our second day in Dublin (Saturday, Oct 18), we got up really early and went on the Wild Wicklow Tour! It went into the Wicklow Mountains and National Park, just south of Dublin. The tour was SO beautiful. It was a full day into the national park and was one of my favorite things that we did.

The tour started off with a short city tour of Dublin on our way out and then we took a coastal drive past DunLaoghire Harboure. This spot was SO beautiful as you can see, below.

The island in the background is a fisherman's wharf area. I have so many pictures of this entire day, so when I get home I will show so many more!

Banni, Erica and I decided to be adventurous and climbed down all the way to this rock. I took a nice little spill on our way there and have a really great scrape/bump/bruise combo still on my left leg to show for it.

We then went past the towns of Dalkey and Killiney, home to the rich and famous (Bono, Enya, van Morrison, etc.) and on to Avoca Handweavers. Then we went to my absolute favorite part of the tour - the Lough Tay in Glendalough! Look how beautiful it is:

Erica and I taking it all in. It was misting and incredibly windy, and we only got this picture of us two because we went down the cliff further than anyone else dared too on that day!

The Lough Tay. I wanted to stand there all day just looking out at it. Right to the left of this area is where they filmed the movies Braveheart, Excalibur and, my personal favorite, P.S. I Love You.

We went to a pub for lunch and then went on to Glendalough to see the 6th century monastic setltement, along with a ton of national park area, including 2 more lakes.

This is the main stone at the entrance which is supposed to bring good luck and grant a wish if you touch it. So, of course, I made a wish!

The largest Celtic cross - made out of solid granite.

The round tower in the cemetary, along with another Celtic cross headstone. The round tower always had a light on in the night so people knew where they were going based around this area.

We had 2 hours of free time, so we obviously decided to explore the national park! It was so great - London is an exciting city, but where I live doesn't have any parks or real "green spaces" so it feels so nice to get back into nature every once in a while. Here's Erica and I (Erica is originally from North Dakota and goes to school at the U of M, too.)

I was so happy here, too, that I started climbing fences and informing my Massachusetts roommates that "this is how we do it in South Dakota." I will never live that down.

There was a nice waterfall in the middle of our walk, so Veronica and I decided to climb up and get closer to it!That night, we went on the Dublin Pub Crawl for Backpackers! It was SO fun! We met a ton of other students who are studying abroad and got to help a few out who were going to Sweden the next weekend. There are just so many people who are exploring the world, it's been so fun meeting everyone through our adventures!