Exploring Celtic History in Ireland
by Becky Garrison
During my first trek to Ireland, I decided to visit Glendalough Valley, one of Ireland’s most popular destinations. While the monks abandoned “Monastic City” centuries ago as a result of political and religious upheavals,” the remains of a 6th century Christian monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin remain the centerpiece of this town. These hand-built stone structures give a glimpse into a way of life and prayer with an emphasis on stark simplicity and an intimate connection to one’s natural surroundings.
I entered Monastic City via the Gateway, the ruins of a two-story building with a cross-inscribed stone on the west wall. Then I circled around small piles of stones where the Cathedral, the Priest’s House, St. Kieran’s Church and St. Kevin’s Kitchen once stood.
After I toured the ruins of Monastic City, surveyed the 98-foot high Round Tower, and walked around the two lakes (glean dá locha means literally “glen of the two lakes”), the touristy chatter started to get on my nerves. I almost hopped on the afternoon bus back to Dublin until I remembered that my room at Glendalough International Hostel was already charged to my credit card.
Stuck in Glendalough, I grabbed a quick late lunch from a local food cart and set out for a late-afternoon five-mile hike on Miner’s Road. This route took me by the two lakes toward the ruins of an 18th century mining village that closed down in 1965. Rows of purple heather greeted me with pine trees serving as an umbrella to shade me from the sun. Finally I got to sample paradise almost all by myself.
En route, I glanced out at the hole in the rock called “St. Kevin’s Bed,” a seven-by-three-foot cave located about 26 feet above the lake. According to lore, an angel showed him this site though given the inaccessibility of his bed, one wonders how Kevin managed to ever leave this hole. Like other good hermits, he lived off the land, consuming herbs and fish. Legend has it that as part of his prayer routine, he would stand in ice-cold water up to his neck. While stories abound recounting Kevin’s unbridled kindness toward animals, this nature lover had a major dislike of women. According to rumor, he dealt with an amorous woman by pushing her into a bed of nettles.
While I doubt I would enjoy meeting such an ornery coot face-to-face, I soaked in Kevin’s spirit by walking along the mossy banks. I capped off the evening by heading into the nearby town and my first pint of Guinness on Irish soil.
The next morning stopped by the Glendalough Visitors Centre where I bought a trail map. As I surveyed some of the 50,000 acres comprising the Wicklow Mountains National Park, I could see the pine-covered, mossy mountains off in the distance. They appeared to be grinning at me like a Cheshire cat daring me to set out on one of the treacherous climbs not recommended for solo travelers.
“You know you want it.”
“If you thought the Upper Lake was remarkable, you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet.”
The adventurer in me contemplated climbing my own personal Mount Everest, but I let my head win this battle and chose to hike the Poulanass and St. Kevin’s Cell route. This moderate one mile grade trail would take me by the Poulanass Waterfall and the site of St. Kevin’s cell. Once I got embedded deep into the purple heather, I took off my shoes. With each step, the moss encircled my feet, as though to provide me with a pair of nature’s own slippers. Along the way, I ended up taking a short detour to further explore the Poulanass Waterfall and Plunge Pools. (The name Poulanass is taken from the Irish poll an eas which is translated “hole of the waterfall.”)
After I climbed down, I stopped by a shack located at the foot of Upper Lake for a quick snack and then set off on the Green Road Walk. This flat mile long trail that meandered around the oak woodlands and then continued to the edge of Lower Lake. Along the way, I passed by the outskirts of Monastic City where I saw more busloads of tourists, most of whom seemed more intent on taking photographs of stones than actually walking on Kevin’s soil. Hopefully some of them will leave the city for the hills and have their own encounter with Kevin.
My day concluded with a walk to the neighboring town where I capped off my mini pilgrimage with my second pint of Guinness. Cheers to Kevin.
If You Go:
For additional information about setting out on a pilgrimage to Ireland, log on Discover Ireland
History of the Glendalough and Glendasan Mines (Luganure)
Private Day Tour of Wicklow and Glendalough from Dublin
About the author:
Becky Garrison is a freelance writer who has authored six books with a seventh book in development. In addition to penning a book on pilgrimages for Zondervan (a subsidiary of Harper Collins), she has written articles about destination travel and travel products for several publications, including 52 Perfect Days, Yahoo, Sportsology.net and Killing the Buddha. http://about.me/BeckyGarrison
All photographs are by Becky Garrison.
I’ve daydreamed about one day being able to scale a European mountaintop so I could sing that quintessential European classic pop song “Una Paloma Blanca.” It was in my grasp, but the Mt. Pilatus’ dragons and ghost of Pontius Pilate would not hear of it. Instead, they had a more memorable adventure in store for me. You see, I planned my day to go to the top of Mt. Pilatus via The Golden Round Trip. Mt. Pilatus is one of the Swiss Alps gateways that helped usher in Switzerland as a tourist hotspot in the late 19th century. I expected to do a good amount of hiking, but steady rainfall in the lower elevations of Luzern and reports of snow up the mountain before I even left Luzern appeared to hamper my day.
My second leg of the “Golden Round Trip” proceeded on the world’s steepest cogwheel railway from Alpnachstad, where us passengers experienced gradients as high as 48 per cent at speeds of about six to seven miles per hour. Going up, we were surrounded by thick evergreen forests being hammered by rain, then light snow, and then heavier snow as the visibility decreased. But I began to notice something on my ascent: I wasn’t feeling queasy anymore and my sinuses were clearing up as the 33 minute ride (that’s half price with a Swiss Pass) proceeded through several tunnels barely wide enough for the cog way carriages. The driver masterfully had to navigate the heavier snow amidst sudden jerks and stops. He laughed even though I was anxious (because there are three braking systems to prevent catastrophe).
The Entlebuch resides west of Luzern, about 35 minutes by train at the stop called Schupfheim. It’s made up of eight villages and spans some 154 square miles and contains many of the Alps’ rolling foothills: roughly one per cent of the total land area of Switzerland. One fourth of this area is now protected moors (highland marshlands), which exuded a pleasantly eerie feeling amidst the fog, making me wonder if any monsters were lurking there.
The town of Fluhi is on the other side of the Entlebuch, and provided me a great opportunity to see more breathtaking fall scenery in the Pre-Alps (foothills), ending at Cheesiloch, a canyon with a 130-plus foot drop. Prior to the path leading directly to the canyon, a 45 minute hike from town begins that has winding roads, cows who love being photographed (kept apart by a “fence” made of just one rope), and rolling meadows. The last 30 minutes to the canyon would be one of my most challenging hikes I’ve ever taken, and once again, my walking pole saved the day, for the narrow pathway was sharp and rocky, and drenched with wet maple leaves. Nature’s soundtrack included hearing the pleasant babbling of the Rotbach stream as I proceeded deeper into the dense evergreen forest with deep drops to the canyon below.
When I first approach, the exterior seems unremarkable, a rather austere, two-storey, peach-coloured building on the edge of a small square that serves mainly as a parking lot. This is the pride of Cesena? I can’t say I’m impressed so far. I enter a long, echoing hallway with a display of photos of brilliantly illuminated pages from Plutarch’s Lives. It feels so modern and barren. I wonder where the actual books are.
‘The elephant is the symbol of the Malatesta family,’ Alberto tells me, ‘because elephants are powerful and have good memories. The Malatestas haughtily regarded their enemies as merely annoying ‘mosquitoes’. They also were known for deformities of their heads and their very long noses. In fact, Malatesta means bad head. Portraits of them are always in profile to show their good side.’
The more I look around this hushed, ancient space, and the more Alberto tells me, the more awestruck I become. In the 15th century, one large book would have been worth about the same as a country home with all its livestock, and 343 manuscripts are kept here. All are hand-printed by the Franciscan monks on pages made of goat and sheep vellum. The covers are leather-bound wood, with metal studs so the leather doesn’t rub on the shelf. A perfect micro-climate, unheated and with air circulation from the vaulted ceiling, has protected the books. In fact, the Malatesta Library is recognized throughout the world as the only humanist library whose buildings, furnishings, and book collection are fully and perfectly preserved.
Because this library was so well lit, it was one of the first where books could be read in the same room in which they were shelved. The circular rosette window faces east and the sunlight pouring though is the main light source. Along the south and north walls are also numerous arched Venetian-style windows. The panes consist of many circular bottle bottoms tinged pink and green, which act as lens to magnify and radiate the light onto each row of desks. I squint my eyes and can imagine robed Franciscan monks toiling to copy manuscripts in fine, painstaking calligraphy, illuminating the margins with brilliant colours. As the sun and shadows shift, the monks pick up their pages and pens and follow the daylight around the room.
Numerous books are open and on display in glass cases. One, from 1444, is a book of legal trials and sentences from Florence. Another, from 1496, is a book of liturgies, a different one for each Sunday’s mass for a year. I’m especially drawn to seven huge choral books, made large enough for a whole choir to view. The capital letters and borders are amazingly intricate, illuminated with real gold leaf and brilliant green, pink, blue, red, and purple. Many also have postcard-sized illustrations, of strange beasts, birds, flowers. I even notice that pictured inside some of the capital letters are toiling monks.
It is an awakening visiting the country of my family’s heritage. There is much to see and learn, understanding about the village and adjusting to the differences in customs, the diversity of rural life and the outlook on life in general. This is an opportunity to observe and live village life on a daily basis.
I faintly hear the sounds of a rooster crowing somewhere in the valley and also ringing faintly in the distance is the sound of church bells from the Church of the Assumption in Zagradec. The sunlight begins to invade the room and my slumber is shattered by the heavy gong of the bells of Saint Primoz. Added to this myriad of sounds a tractor heads out to the fields just beyond the village edge.
Good fresh bread does not last long in Slovenia due to the lack of preservatives so frequent trips to the market are required. To obtain groceries and bread we drive to Ivancna Gorica, a city complete with a small train station. The rail line connects Ljubljana and Novo Mesto and is used by passengers. Ivancna Gorica has a population of about 14,000 people and grocery stores of Mercator, Tus, and Hofer. Hofer is the Slovenian version of Aldi. The Mercator soon is our favorite. It is somewhat larger than the others and has a better selection of groceries. We obtain certain staples that should last us for the duration and learn quickly the differences between grocery stores in Slovenia and the United States. The cuts of meat are not the same so we must make due and improvise. It has been a long time since we ate brown eggs (jajce). We were able to purchase some in the Mercator and they were good. But the best and tastiest were provided by some of the neighbors in the village. They have thick shells and rich yellow yolks. We enjoy them for breakfast in the morning and they are delicious with ham (sunka). One day we have a taste for hotdogs or wieners and they have a variety with pork, beef, and some with horsemeat. However they are just not the same, but their homemade sausage is tastier.
Cannes needs little introduction having achieved such film fame both Mickey Mouse and the Pink Panther themselves have left their hand prints in cement along its coastal promenade. Beach restaurants crowd the sands, taking possession of waterfront for their patrons and leaving but small tailings for the public. From the heights of its old castle can be seen the Cheshire Cat-smiling beach grinning out to sea. A sea filled with yachts to make a mariner drool and a beehive of business. Amid the watercraft run ferries to the nearby Lerin Islands, each isle staking its own claim to fame.
The largest, Ile Ste. Marguerite, holds the fortress, Fort Royal, and prison where the famed Man in the Iron Mask was held. Trails, museums and restaurants abound for the pleasure of tourists. We chose the smaller but no less interesting Ile St. Honorat where Cistercian monks have returned to a monastic life dating back to the 15th century. The church tower, rising high above waving palm trees, is readily visible from the coastal trail and overlooks the older remains of a fortified monastery jutting daringly into the very seas from which marauders came for plunder. The trail is dotted with chapels and legacies of war, though the contemporary peacefulness of the place makes turmoil seem so alien.
Mougins is, at first, unassuming until you learn the real medieval town is perched above the main road. It is a relatively short but steep climb to the jewel that draws tourists in their numbers. A less frequent bus travels the route if time and your patience permit. Most famed for its highly rated restaurants and the annual week-long Gourmet Festival it is equally appealing for its twisting narrow streets, plazas, galleries and studios. It appears as if the town has grown out of the hill itself as buildings rise and fall like protruding tree roots. The church bell chimed above us and echoed through the streets. Narrow lanes framed camera-ready shots. Life hums here.
Tagging along with my wife and daughter I had little chance of avoiding perfumeries but more significantly the International Museum of Perfume. Even the limited range of my sniffer was awakened in this three level marvel which seemed to fit into the town like a piece from a jig saw. Everything you wanted to known about perfume is there. History, interactive aroma displays, a world of perfume containers from elegant to humorous and movies had us leaving more than two hours within its walls. When we emerged it was in another part of the town near a bronze statue of a parfumeur and a plaza with a spectacular view over the Mediterranean, incorporating Mougins and Cannes.
