We left on sunday afternoon and on wednesday we were already in the north of France close to the place we'd take the ferry to Ireland... so we still had a day to rest from travelling and enjoyed the day at a beautiful beach in Normandy...
I'll just leave you with the pictures and some brief comments...
preparing a snack...
it didn't take so long to get to Spain...we're not that far...
Our first night stop...
we were lucky to find a green place in the midst of this deserted landscape...
here's Alex and Naomi, our companion basil plants :-)
another stop...nearly crossing the Pyrenees...
beautiful sunsets...
third night, next to a beautiful ancient forest in France...
chilling out for lunch...
mount St. Michel...beautiful...from afar... if we knew it was such a touristic place we wouldn't have gone... it was too late when we found ourselves in a huge car traffic...like rush hour in a big city... the monastery was beautiful, impressive actually... it was a pity we didn't come closer to see it...we simply had no patience or desire to make our way in together with thousands of tourists... maybe another time, at 6am for the prayer times :-)... definitely not at 3pm when the tide is low...
we had fun though...walking in the mud that surrounds the monastery... our highlight :-)
Our resting day in this beautiful scenery...
thursday afternoon, getting into the huge ferry...
First signs of Ire-land from our binoculus ...after 14 hours
Arriving at Rosslare port... south of Ireland...
a view of "Oscar Wilde" ferry
in Wexford, only 30Km after we left the ferry, we stopped at the Irish National heritage park... it gives an overview of 9000 years of Irish History... and a nice tour to see replicas of buildings, instruments and even a beautiful Celtic monastic village...
obviously I was stunned by the buildings :-)
Our destination was a real monastic settlement in Glendalough, south of Dublin in the Wicklow mountains ... the first in Ireland, founded in the 6th century by St.Kevin, a hermit priest in this beautiful land-escape...
we were there to spend some time with a small group of friends...Rosemary (Emma's mom), Mathilde, Jayme, Susanna, Miriam and Philipa... a kind of a retreat and fellowship time...
here we were on a walk through the valley with Father Michael who hosted us with Sister Breda in their beautiful retreat house...very inspiring people...
the monastic settlement with the 30meter round tower in the back. these were built as bell towers, but also served on occasion as store-houses and as places of refuge in times of attack.
the woods, simply magical... we definitely want to go back there.
one of the two lakes...
contemplating the unknown... making peace with the unknown...
Detail of the peaceful prayer room at Michael and Breda's retreat place. We had mass here on sunday morning...we started outside, giving thanks for all creation, all elements, facing the 4 directions... inside we sang, read the missal, shared our thoughts on that day's readings and shared communion. what a nice welcome for this beautiful journey.
Finally me and emma are starting our journey together (no more physically apart I mean) , and that's why we came with "soraia" to Ireland ... Our wedding party and Love Celebration will take part on the 10th of September at The Corrymeela Centre.
After that, we'll make our road trip back to the Mount of Oaks... ready for a new season to begin...
How exciting !!!
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