Garden Tour of Ireland and England: Last Day in Ireland

I'm going to keep this post on the short side as we have to be up at 6am tomorrow so that we can catch our ferry over to Wales! Plus, today was a rather easy and laid back day so there was not a ton of action. We started the day off with a tour of Dublin, Paddy took us around on the bus and pointed out notable buildings and even took us around some of Dublin's more notable parks. After our tour we headed to a couple of Irish cathedrals. They weren't much different than any other cathedral I have seen. The two we visited had a a nave and apse, and all the other usual cathedral architecture styles and building forms. After the cathedrals we stopped at Trinity College to have a look at the Book of Kells.

From there it was a short drive to the home and garden of Helen Dillion. She is essentially the Martha Stewart of Ireland, minus the jail time and such. This might just be one of my favorite gardens! The back garden is beautifully done with a plethora of colors and textures as all sorts of different plants are introduced. The garden also featured a very prominent water feature the created a strong central axis through the garden that created a pleasant sense of balance in an otherwise rather natural seeming garden. Once we finished our wandering the gardens we were invited into her home (she sadly was not home, she had travelled to England for the Chelsea Flower Show so her husband took care of us) for tea and cookies. After a delightful afternoon snack we called it a day and headed back to the hotel for a free afternoon and evening. When we arrived back at the hotel most of us crashed for a bit while others went out to do some last bits of Irish shopping. Then, as usual we headed out in groups for dinner before all meeting up to go out to the pubs one last time in Ireland!