Today I had the day off for Good Friday and met up with Derek’s Mom, Susan and his brother’s Fiancé Niamh and we went to Powerscourt for the afternoon. A little about Powerscourt:
The gardens at Powerscourt are probably the finest in Ireland both for their design and their dramatic setting at the foot of Great Sugar Loaf Mountain. The house and grounds were commissioned in the 1730’s by Richard Wingfield, the 1st Viscount Powerscourt. New ornamental gardens were completed in 1858-75 by the 7th Viscount, who added gates, urns and statues collected during his travels in Europe. The house was gutted by an accidental fire in 1974, but the ground floor has been beautifully renovated and now accommodates an upmarket centre where they sell hand made beauty and bath products and hand woven wool sweaters and clothing and food. There is also an excellent restaurant and Café (Avoca) where you could buy inexpensive healthy meals like quiche and salad which is what I enjoyed for lunch. Derek’s cousin works at Powerscourt and we ran into him there and he sent us off to walk around the grounds for free entry which was nice and definitely worth it. I took loads of photos and have uploaded many of them such as:
The Perron: Leading down from the house to Triton lake is the Perron, a beautiful Italianate stairway added in 1874. Beside the lake, it is guarded by two statues of Pegasus- the mythical winged horse and emblem of the Wingfied family.
Triton Lake: made for the first garden the lake takes its name from the central fountain which is modelled on a 17th century work by Bernini in Rome.
Japanese Gardens: enchanting Edwardian gardens created out of bog land, contain bamboo trees!
http://www.powerscourt.ie/
Beautiful day, good company. We ended the day off at Derek’s parents for hot cross buns and tea. Good way to start a long Easter weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment