Kylemore Abbey

Plucked from the pages of a storybook, Kylemore Abbey sits overlooking a beautiful lake and gardens.  To have lived here amongst the rock laden mountains would have been amazing. I can just imagine decorating a Christmas tree in the sitting room, getting dressed up for dinners in the fancy dining room, and sipping wine after dinner in the parlor. If you have that kind of money, life is a big party. 

Then I walk into the garden masters house, and its modest but also comfortable.  This would have been middle class living back in the day.

 

 

In the house of the garden workers, the mood is a bit different.  One small window provides the only light into the space.  They have a room to cook/eat in, and a room to sleep in.   I feel my spirit dip standing in the cold, damp darkness, a suffocating feeling closing in.   However, workers here probably felt very happy for the food, occupation and warm fire given the great famine the rest of the country had to suffer through. 

 

 

 

During the potato famine of 45 and 46, nearly half of the country's population either died or left.  You can see the lines in the mountains where potato crops once grew.  And then you see the rock walls built by the poor during the Great Hunger.  Generous landlords would keep their people paid by having them build walls through the mountains.  A day's work for a day's wage, even though there were no crops to harvest, this was how they kept their people employed and fed.

 

 

Lake Lucerne and the Swiss Alps

 

I know this blog entry is WAY late, but now that my pictures are all organized, I have to share the amazing views and tributes to old ways of living in the Swiss Alps.

 

The views were stunning, the hikes adventurous, and to get anywhere, you needed to take either a gondola or cog wheel train up the super-steep mountainsides.  Mom loved that!

 

From our hotel, we had a view of the waterfall in the valley, which was lit up at night for a breathtaking scene.  Sometimes, at just the right angle, you could look through the valley and swear you were in Yosemite.

 

We had amazing fondue.  How can you go wrong really, when dinner is a big pot of rich, melted cheese served with a bowl of bread?  We also learned that chocolate fondue was not a Swiss thing....it appeared to be a sweet American variation of the otherwise delicious savory original.

 

On the way back from dinner one night, we saw this awesome orb made out of river rocks that had been constructed to glow from the inside out.  We all had to peek in and see where the lights were coming from...easily amused.

 

 

 

The following morning, in Lauterbrunnen, we participated in a marathon up to Jungfrau mountain...by clapping for all the crazy runners as they passed by.

 

 

 

 

We visited an enormous open air museum where they brought in and maintained buildings from the area's historic roots.  If a building was more than 200 years old, it had the option to come here for display.  The real impressive structures told tales of an age where life, priorities, and sensibilities were very different.

 

Imagine this being your house, barn, and place of work...all were rolled into one-

 

 

This might have been your kitchen.

 



 

 

 

Here was your pantry, with food stored for the winter

This was your dining room table.

 

Your bedroom.

 

 

 

Maybe you made lace in your spare time.



 

Or straw hats...

 This was your garden.

 

 You might have lives in a house like this with three other families.

 

This is how you did laundry.

 

 This would have been the workshop.  A real man's lair...

 

These would have been my baking tools.  Most likely they didn't have cheesecakes the way you're all used to. :)

If you were rich, you might have lived in a house like this. 

 

But chances are you didn't bathe very often, and there was no indoor plumbing.  Light was by candle and warmth was by fire.  You ate what you shot, caught or grew.  The family lived, died, and thrived together all under the same roof.  A day's work was back-breaking, and everyone had a trade.  You were a thatch-maker, a lumber-man, a baker, a barrel-maker, a doctor, a blacksmith, a farmer.  Communication was by letter or around the dinner table, and dinner tables were not plagued by cellphones.  Can you close your eyes and imagine...?

The Ominous Cliffs of Moher

Probably one of the most famously scene natural sights in Ireland are the Cliffs of Moher. Rather than trying to drive the hours of country roads on my own, I opted for another bus tour. Why not let someone else drive me around and tell me stories all day?

Watching the waves from the Atlantic Ocean beat at the huge sea cliffs, even the ocean seems small and helpless against the dark, cold stone that stands above, unyielding and uncaring about the tickle if waves beneath.

 

 Of course, I had to hop the fence and look right down over the edge...

 

 

It was a liiiiittle windy!

 We passed through the Valley of the Killer Sheep, where many a traveler had been victims of brutal attacks by these grizzly and ferocious animals.  Well, mostly they just wandered slowly across the road and chewed a mouth full of grass while glaring at you...but you should never turn your back on them!  Mountain Sheep are kept for the lambs, which is a sought after meat in Ireland.  Their wool actually isn't good for much given the harsh conditions they live in.  But let me tell you, lamb is tasty!  As for all you readers who are about to get uppity on me, take 10 minutes to research where the chicken and beef you eat come from (for real) and then we can have a conversation. :)

 As we made out way up into the mountains, the landscape changed from green and lush to rocky and harsh.  This area of Ireland had a kind of lunar landscape which was very barren, covered in rolling hills of rock, and was bereft of trees and much greenery.  People lived here though, in houses made of stone.  At one point a few hundred years ago taxation was determined based on the number of windows you had in your  home.  So what did the people do?  They rocked-up their windows and put in split doors, so that the top of the door could be opened as a window, and when the tax collector came along, it was merely a door.

 

We stopped at an ancient burial site along the way.  I tried to imagine the lives of the people who lived here hundreds of years ago, before the modern comforts made things more bearable.  I started to understand the historic struggle of the Irish people.  Besides being constantly threatened by invaders, their own lands were unforgiving.  Standing in the biting wind, looking out across grey rocks and greyer skies, I couldn't imagine surviving here, let alone being happy for very long.

More rock walls line the roads here, and you can see they are dry stone walls, meaning they don't have mortar or any kind of adhesive materials holding them together. Building these walls was a skillful task that took time and patience, slowly placing the stones properly.

 

 
Even now, in the modern era, you can get a sense of tribal living by visiting towns in the Irish countryside.  We drove through one town with no more than 2600 people.  There's one school, one grocery store, one pub, one church, and one post office.  The town maintains the town for the most part.  They work together to survive and thrive.  It's such a departure from the American culture of more, bigger, better.