Tuesday, August 12, 2014
After leaving Renvyle, we headed southeast to Kylemore Abbey. Originally a private castle built by Mitchell and Margaret Henry in the late 1860s, the castle passed through a series of owners for a few decades until 1920, when a group of Benedictine nuns who had fled Belgium during World War I purchased the estate. Though they maintain a private residence there to this day, they have opened a portion of the lobby and most of the grounds to visitors.
The Abbey is located on quiet, secluded, Kylemore Lough, which is surrounded by limestone hillsides.
It is also home to a 6-acre walled Victorian garden, which we visited before touring the Abbey.
Close-ups of the Abbey's exterior.
A shot of the lake from near the Abbey's entrance.
Interior pictures of the Abbey.
This German tour guide had a cool haircut.
After leaving the Abbey, we stopped for this shot of the lake and hills:
...and then visited the Gothic church. In 1874, only seven years after construction of the castle began, Margaret Henry died of dysentery while visiting Egypt, only 45 years old, leaving behind a husband and nine children. Mitchell Henry transported his wife's remains back to their estate near Ireland's western shore, so she could rest eternally in her beloved homeland. This cathedral was erected in her memory.
These marble pillars come from the four provinces of Ireland: green from Connemara (Connaught), rose from Cork (Muster), black from Kilkenny (Leinster), and grey from Armagh (Ulster).
A stairwell outside the church. I love the style and shape of handrails.
We headed west for an hour to our next destination. That meant traveling through some fairly remote parts of the Irish landscape, and that meant Bridget got to take lots of pictures of sheep.
Lots and lots of pictures of sheep.
There were also pretty hillsides.
And a lovely rocky stream.
And Bridget taking a picture of her friend's name on a Coke bottle.
A lovely little stream.
This sign is a real attention-grabber.
And then we arrived at our destination: Ashford Castle. (Thanks to April Barnard; Bill & Lisa Scheuer; Rick, Semi & Biniam Macias; Sigrid Soini; Ken & Anne Miller; and Donna Lovell!) Sitting on the shores of massive Lough Corrib near the border between Counties Galway and Mayo, Ashford was originally build by the O'Connor family in 1228. It spent the next several centuries bouncing around from one aristocratic family to another, and was opened as a high-end (high-, high-, high-, high-end) hotel in 1915. John Wayne's film The Quiet Man was shot in the area, and the Duke other members of the crew stayed here. Pierce Brosnan, James Bond himself, was married here in 2001.
So what's it like to stay in a castle this ritzy? Well, for one thing, there's a personalized welcome message on the television. (The background shot is a clip from the castle's falconry school, the only such school in Ireland. If I'm ever lucky enough to return, I am totally taking that class.)
This was our view from our bedroom.
This was a view of the bedroom.
View from the bathroom.
The shower and bathtub.
The helicopter pad. Every castle needs a helicopter pad.
Some shots of the castle interior. Among the castle's best features (and the castle had many, many best features) was the myriad of options to get from Point A to Point B. There was a broad roomy staircase with plenty of rooms for bags and luggage. If you had no bags, though, you could take a shortcut via this narrow U-turn stairwell.
I think, in this next picture, we were lost in the castle and not upset about that in the slightest.
The drawing room, or sun lounge. Bridget was a little worn out from our long day of travel and rested here while I explored the grounds.
Speaking of the grounds...
Somewhere around here I decided that I really, really wanted to find a sword and rescue a damsel from a dragon.
I soon returned to find the damsel, my lovely bride absolutely beaming over her pint of Guinness (thanks to Chip & Shauni Cohron!) with fruit, cheese, and crackers (thanks to Glenn & Melissa Pasley!)
And then I dragged her outside so we could take photos together.
The entrance to the castle.
The golf course. What, your castle doesn't have a golf course?
A low-hanging branch on this tree has been carved into a little stool, so we stopped for photos. (Seriously, how adorable is this woman?)
The bridge over the river (I'm going to pretend it's a moat, because castles should have moats) to get to the castle.
And the castle has its own garden.
Hey, where does this tunnel lead?
Oh. The walled garden. It leads there.
I don't know what kind of rocks these are or why they're shaped this way. But they're cool.
The room key is an electric card that you swipe across a scanner to open the door. Just handing out guests a cheap plastic card wouldn't be proper, though, so they've wrapped it in leather, then attached it to a very key-shaped old-timey key, which serves no purpose other than to look the way a key should look. I can't tell you how happy this made me.
We ate that night in THE DUNGEON (thanks to Michelle & Connor Tibke!), which is much nicer than it sounds. We enjoyed a lovely meal of fish and chips (Bridget) and seafood pies (Vincent). We tried taking some photos of the castle at night, but none of them turned out worth much. Oh well, we'll just have to get better equipment and come back sometime.
All kidding aside, this was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we feel humble and blessed to be loved by so many. Truly one of the highlights of our trip, which makes it one of the highlights of our lives.
It goes without saying that publication of this blog has slowed tremendously as of late, but we are near the end of our journey, and hope to have everything wrapped up soon. Thank you so much for reading!
