We had driven from Dublin to Cork on the motorway, and even though the scenery was pretty good from a car doing 120kmh, I thought it might be nice if, on the way back up to Dublin for our last couple of days, we took a less efficent, more scenic route. At some point in every Maeve Binchy book (and I have read them all), somebody talks about visiting the beautiful Wickow Mountains (they also talk about going to a place call the Forty Foot Hole, once a ‘Gentlemen’s only’ bathing spot, via something called the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit), but the books never made that sound as appealing). But Wicklow sounded lovely.
So I mapped out a route from Cork, through the Wicklow Mountains National Park, to the seaside village of Bray. We had had spectacular weather for the first seven days of our trip, but we knew that just couldn’t last. And, it didn’t. But even though it was bucketing down, we did get to drive through some lovely villages (very unlike Scotland’s wee villages, which are in turn, very unlike those in England), and saw some wonderful scenery.
We stopped at a well known hiking launchpoint and photo op at Turlough Hill and, fortunately for us, the rain lifted long enough to get a photo. Then continuing through the rain and twisty roads (my sister either has nerves of steel, or a seriously bitten lower lip – nary a peep from her) to what we can only assume was a pretty little town, Bray (hard to tell in a downpour). We had a lovely lunch at a well known seaside pub, then she braved the elements (no let up in the rain this time) and got a picture of the harbour and its inhabitants.
Then off to Swords, a small town outside Dublin, to another cute AirBnB and a quiet evening.