Glendalough is a monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. It's located in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains National Park. There are two main areas, the Lower Valley and the Upper Lake. The upper lake sites are evidently only accessible by water, so we stuck to the lower valley.

Driving was an interesting experience. Leah started out in the city. There's a fairly normal looking four lane highway going out of Dublin, but it rapidly becomes a much smaller road. I've done my share of driving out in the country around home, and we tend to give windy mountain roads a maximum speed limit of 45 mph. It's 60 in Ireland, which is just a little scary when you're trying to get used to driving on the left, and the road is barely two lanes wide. Add in the fact that most of the bridges are one lane, and it becomes a very interesting experience.

We stayed at the Glendalough Youth Hostel, which had just been renovated — you could smell the fresh paint. The rooms were very nice, and the beds very comfortable. We roomed with a girl from New Zealand who was biking around the country, and two older British women. We had our first experience with one of the prime rules of staying in a hostel — namely, if you are in a room with anyone older than yourself, they will snore like a buzz saw.

The monastic settlement is very close to the road, and has a visitor's center, though it costs to get in, so we roughed it. The most notable ruin is the Round Tower, which is clearly visible from the road. There are also a number of small churches and other buildings. The place is now a cemetary, with fairly recent graves. There are even graves inside the buildings. Most religious ruins in Ireland are now cemetaries, which is very different from what I'm used to, but a very practical idea.

Glendalough is surrounded by forest. There's a lot of grass in the undergrowth, again, a little different then what I'm used to. It makes the entire forest look very lush. There's a path from the monastic settlement that goes into the forest and ends up at the upper lake. It's very beautiful, and well worth it. There are several more ruins on the path, and the Poulanass waterfall.

The road out of Glendalough toward Kildare runs through the Wicklow gap. It's an amazing drive through the mountains. We stopped at a really interesting old ruin near the top of the road beside a stream. I wish we'd known what it was. Looked like a nice, defensable location.