Round Towers

We headed out in another overcast, drizzly, cold day, but tried to ignore it as we drove to Glendalough or "Glen of Two Lakes".  Unfortunately when we got there we didn't really see the lakes, but we did see these round towers that Susan had read about in her book.

In Susan's book they talked about how these were used for defense by the monks.  When the raiders (Vikings, English, or other Irish) came, they would go up the ladders and then pull the ladders up after them.  However a tour guide at Cashel told us that this wasn't true, that they were just bell towers.  You be the judge.  You can also judge how lovely the weather was from this picture of me enjoying the lovely Irish weather.

There was also an interesting chapel there that the stone roofs that were first done in Ireland.  They use overlapping stone tiles to create the roof.  I'm still not exactly sure what holds it all up, but they seem to stand up pretty well.

Built into the wall was a little seat.  Given that it was pooled with water, neither Susan or I tried it out.

 

Then it was off to our next stop, which was supposed to be the Black Castle in Leighlenbridge, but after driving around the tiny little streets in the rain for 15 minutes with no success, we decided that we would just press on to our next stop at Kilkenny.

By the time we got there it had stopped raining and warmed up a bit. 

We walked around town and found another cathedral that we visited. 

So the day ends with us dreaming of better weather tomorrow.