June 2nd, Clifden to Leenaan

We said good bye to the Sea Mist House. I really think it was the best we have had. Big comfortable rooms and an incredible breakfast. Other than the availability of smoked salmon for breakfast with eggs, the fruits were wonderful. Sheila made a fresh fruit with herbs and an incredible spiced fruit. I asked her about it and the spice is Chinese 5 spice. I really think this is the best place we have stayed so far.

 Mike took this picture right in front of the Sea Mist. They just paraded through the center of a good size town.

Had another interesting experience with language. I needed to add minutes to the other phone and tried unsuccessfully to do it online, so I called them. It turns out to add minutes is to Top Up! We learn :)

It took me a while to get out of town. I went to the pharmacy to get another bandage and they were closed. It is Sunday and it is also a Bank Holiday on Monday. This is Ireland, they are much more serious about their off time. Then I went to the Connemara  Blue glass store. He had some really nice things and bought a glass hanging piece for just 5 euros. I think I will use it for the extra keys. Finally I had to go to the supermarket for a roll and lottery. It would be so cool to win the Irish lottery! 

So I am off, about an hour and a half after the guys. Today is more Connemara, starting with Scott's least favorite road so far, the Bog Road. That makes twice they have had to ride it. Apparently, it doesn't matter which direction you are going, you are going to get a head wind. I got some great photos of sheep and lambs but also some ponies. I don't know if they are Shetland or a special kind of Irish pony but they were in a group hanging by the road. One was having a good time rolling on the grass.

 

I am on my way north but it took me past Ballynahinch Castle Hotel, a castle that has been restored into a hotel. It was the home of Richard Martin who founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I drove through the incredible grounds but decided not to go in 'for a spot of tea' between the jeans, sneakers and face.

Then it was north to Kylemore Abbey. I have been there before but it was worth the price to go again. I just think it is fabulous. I saw it in September so there was a definite difference.

A wealthy English doctor, Mitchel Henry and his Irish wife honeymooned in Connemara and loved it so much, they bought the Kylemore Lodge and built the Kylemore Castle with incredible Victorian gardens, Turkish Baths and a superb, enormous place to entertain. In fact, at one point they entertained the King of England. But more importantly,  he brought work and a better standard of living to all the tenants there. He set up systems of heating that were way ahead of his times. When his wife died 4 years after the Castle was finished, he built a mini Cathedral in her memory. It is a really incredible church. The Castle is now owned by the Benedictine Nuns who ran a school there. Now it is a place of retreat. But the nuns, with the help of grants and loans have restored and are continuing to restore what is now called Kylemore Abbey.

I love the gardens, both formal and kitchen. At one point in the 19th century, they were the largest walled Victorian gardens in Ireland and they must have been magnificent. They were said to have had glass houses for raising exotic fruits and vegetables like bananas and mangos. The glass houses were heated by a lime kiln, another Mitchel Henry invention. Currently there are only 2 restored but one holds a vinery.  It is said that the women would take strolls in the glass houses when the weather was too wet to do so outside.

They have also restored the head gardeners house which you can visit and see how a very priced employee lived on the grounds. The other workers lived in a restored Bothy which we were able to see including a peat fireplace.

After you cross over a stream and vegetation, you come to the kitchen garden which is still used to grow all the herbs, fruits and vegetables that the nuns use as well as what is used in the café.

 The planting was done but nothing is full grown.
 

Apparently, it was inappropriate for the gentry to see the kitchen garden, so there was huge herbaceous double sided border which hid the kitchen garden.

 

There are 2 original doors to the walled garden, one on either side. If you go out the one that is off the kitchen garden, there is an oak grove. Years ago, this area had oaks, elms and other hardwood trees. The Abbey is working toward reforesting areas.

 

I hopped the bus back to the entry way, it would have been great to walk it but Mike has gotten in touch with me and I am way behind. But I love this place and going to see everything.

 

Now it is up to the Abbey or Castle. They have a bit more open than when I was here in 2008. I wander through the entrance into the sitting room where they actually have a fire burning. This room is about when the Henry's lived here. The next room is all about the nuns, how they got here from Belgium during WWI, the school they created, the fire in 1959 which destroyed so much and in all practicality, ended the days of the school. The next room is the dining room from the Henry or Manchester period. I don't remember it from the last time. It is really nice but there is also a note that it was unseeming for the guests to have to hear the noise or smell the odors of the kitchen, so the kitchen what quite a distance from the dining room. Those poor servants having to rush to get things to the dining room hot!

Going from the dining room to the entrance way, I went through a foyer that when you looked up, there was an engraved skylight which was beautiful, as well as glimpses at the floor above with the railing to look down.

I headed to the church from there. The walk is beautiful and along the way, there are placards that tell you about the local animals, birds, plants and trees. The trees can be identified by stumps in front of them with the number carved in them.

 

I walked to the mausoleum and back along the beautiful trails.

 

Then it was off to Leenaan.

Our hotel in Leenaan was right on N59 and called the Leenaan Hotel. Mike spoke up and asked if my room had a tub. She said she could only give me one that didn't have a view. That was fine with me! Ever since we left Ennis, it has been showers only for me and the few tubs we had were in the guys rooms. My body really needed a nice soak!

The hotel kind of reminded me of the old Catskills hotels with many old people. They had a formal dinning room and that is where we ate dinner that night and breakfast the next morning.

So I am off to my bath with my Burren Perfumery bath salts!