Powerscourt Gardens

We were blessed with another absolutely beautiful day as we embarked on our trip to Powerscourt House & Gardens. We took the DART train again, then a bus from the DART station in Bray to Powerscourt. The trip there was very simple, no problems.

As soon as we arrived on the estate we could see this was going to be a beautiful stroll. The avenue leading up to the mansion was perfectly groomed, and the trees were spectacular. I will post more pictures later if I find the time. I took a lot of lovely photos. The mansion itself was spectacular, but sadly, none of the period furnishings are left. The mansion was redecorated and restored in the early 1970s (at a cost of millions of dollars). The day that the new decor was revealed in 1974, an accidental fire destroyed the entire central block of the mansion and gutted everything - including the millions of dollars worth of decor. Restoration has only just begun again. So, no fancy rooms to tour today. But the gardens were left intact and lovely!

First were the Italian Gardens, which were picturesque and full of marble sculptures. Peter and I liked them, but felt a little uneasy, because they were so manicured that there was something unnatural about them. They looked like the gardens in Alice in Wonderland. I expected the Red Queen to come screaming out of nowhere, swinging a croquet mallet.

Next were the Japanese Gardens. Also very manicured, but a little more natural looking. The path from the Japanese Gardens lead to these amazing moss covered stone arches. The twin arches are pictured above. These were, in my opinion, the best part of the estate. It was like something out of the Redwall novels I used to read as a child (Pete thought it would be the perfect sort of home for a hobbit).

We wandered the paths of the estate a while more and encountered more neat trees and the Walled Gardens (lots of lovely flowers, beautiful rose bushes!) and then left the estate. It was a 30 minute walk back into town to get lunch. We ate at Poppies Country Cooking. The food was quite good. However, after waiting in the sun for 2 hours for the bus, enduring the bumpy and awful bus ride back, and then sitting through an extra long DART ride due to mechanical problems, our stomachs were rumbly and unhappy. This is what happens when you eat a rich Irish meal and then travel on country roads.

Because of our grumpy digestive systems, we had plain pasta for supper and then went to see Grounded at The Ark. It was a really interesting production that used ropes and aerial circus type tricks in the choreography/blocking. It will certainly be good fodder for my independent study.