Today was our last day with the car so we spent it slowly making our way north through the mountains to the Dublin Airport. We stopped en route at Glendalough to see the ruins of the medieval monastery there. It was originally founded in the 6th century but most of the ruins are from the 11th to 13th centuries. It is in a beautiful setting in a valley of the mountains and is actually the starting point for some major hiking trails. The site is still used as a cemetery as it is still consecrated ground.
We then set our not so trusty GPS device to point us to the Dublin Airport car rental return. In the process, because we have not been taking any major high ways, we saw some very beautiful country side.
Unfortunately our GPS I don’t think had the most recent maps or very good logic. Throughout the trip it always seemed determined to take us through the centre of every town, even if the road we needed to be taking skirted it. Unfortunately the same proved true today.
The mountains are south of Dublin and the airport is north. So of course the route it set was straight through crazy Dublin Friday afternoon traffic. As a result a trip that should have taken an hour took almost 2.5. I’m glad I’m used to driving in Toronto because Irish drivers are crazy aggressive! Dublin only has something like 550,000 people but you’d think there were a few million with how many cars there were! Oh and construction on the road to the airport didn’t help. I relinquished the keys to our Yaris hatchback with sadness. I’m very happy to not have to drive for a few months at the very least!
We are now settled at an airport hotel which has good reliable wifi which has allowed me to finally get caught up on my postings. I’m sorry I fell so far behind but I plead a combination of illness and faulty technology (aka B&Bs that say they have wifi on the website but don’t!). Tomorrow morning very early I will kiss Mum good bye as she heads home to Canada and I start the first solo portion of my journey and head to London for a few days. See you in the UK!