June 4, 2009 - Muckross House and Gardens, Limerick, and Dublin
We woke up bright early to catch the last bit of sightseeing in Killarney before heading back to Dublin.
The last place we visited was the Muckross House and its surrounding gardens. It was designed by the Scottish architect, William Burn, and was built in 1843 in the Tudor style. It was owned by Henry Herbert and his wife Mary and later gained fame due to an one-night visit from Queen Victoria. We took a guided tour of the house and spent a little before and after walking through the gardens. Since no photographs were allowed inside the house, I have only one or two pictures of the house to share. I have uploaded many of my favorite (and I think my best overall) pictures from the garden.
Light at the end of a green tunnel.
This was taken at an entrance to the beautiful Rock Gardens of Muckross House. The rock garden itself was not very big, but little stone paths like this criscrossed most of it.
Rolling green hills, although on a much smaller scale.
I don't have a clever caption for this picture, but I do like the light in this photo.
This is not a good shot, but it does show the expanse of the garden. This was taken from inside the Rock Gardens, look outwards to the rest of the garden grounds. You can see the Macgillycuddy's Reeks in the back.
A shot of Muckross House taken from the garden.
After exploring the house, we took a carriage ride along a scenic route through Killarney National Park down to Torc Waterfall. Taking photos of this waterfall was almost impossible due to the millions of midgets flying around us.
Our driver, Aidan, with the horse, Patch. Supposedly, I have already landed myself an Irish husband (or so Aidan joked).I took many more pictures of the Muckross Gardens, but it's too time consuming to share them all. That trip ended our stay in Killarney and I did not want to leave. As Poet Laureate Alfred Austin wrote of Killarney - "If mountain, wood and water harmoniously blent, constitute the most perfect and adequate loveliness that nature presents, it surely must be owned, that it has, all the world over, no superior".
But as all good things must end, we headed back to town to catch a bus to Limerick. Originally, we had planned to leave for Limerick in the morning and explore that city, but we decided to spend our extra time in Killarney instead. After waiting a while in the bus/rail station, we hopped on a train back to Dublin.
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