Following on from our somewhat disappointing morning in Dublin we had a thirty-minute drive south of the capital city to what would fill the remainder of this day’s cruise excursion.
We like country estates and gardens so it should be no surprise to see us picking this particular tour option from those available on this port stop, but anyone who knows us in real life will know the real reason we wanted to visit Powerscourt Estate and Gardens. You don’t know us in real life, though, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Ooh! Secrecy! And on this, my site, where I tell you things you don’t need to know or don’t want to know all the time!?
Powerscourt Estate stands on the site of a former thirteenth century castle although much of what’s there today, both in the buildings and the formal and landscaped gardens, owes its look to extensive changes undertaken in the eighteenth century and renovations in the 1990s after a serious fire in the 1970s. The Palladian architecture and style of gardens were very familiar to us with lots in common with many of the National Trust properties we’d visited over the years in England.
We didn’t spend a lot of time in the main building as there wasn’t a whole lot to see there with the gardens being the main draw for this visit. Actually, one of the main draws of the estate is the famous Powerscourt Waterfall, Ireland’s second highest, and something we’d assumed we’d be able to see. But, following the theme of the day in Ireland – mild disappointment – we were told that it was possible to walk to it but not within the time limit we had for our visit. More on that time limit later.
This post is therefore mainly photographs from our wander around the gardens with a few elements pointed out. If you like landscape and formal gardens then it’s a fabulous place to take a stroll.
We started off above the Triton Lake with views down to it and some lovely landscape sights across the countryside.
The black and white pebbles arranged to form patterns reminded us of the Risseu we’d seen while visiting the Ligurian region of Italy in 2019, and particularly our trip to Camogli.
We first entered Tower Valley, named for the tower within it, Pepperpot Tower, itself named for the condiment container after which it was designed. Yes, really. Scenes from the TV series The Tudors were filmed here, although a great many TV series and films can claim to have used some portion of Powerscourt Estate as a shooting location over the years.
A meandering, downward-sloping walk along trails and past a variety of trees, bushes, and flowers brought us above the gorgeous Japanese Gardens. This was easily the prettiest and most interesting part of Powerscourt Gardens although the time of year and general overcast conditions of the day might have accentuated its vibrancy.
Fans of mossy grottos – that’s everybody – will enjoy the mossy grotto just off the Japanese Gardens.
We walked in a broadly circular route, taking us around the far side of the lower lake where we could look back up towards the building that we’d entered. The trees and some of the views through them were genuinely spectacular from here.
I can’t say we were expecting to see a pet cemetery on the grounds of Powerscourt Estate and if I had expected it then I’d have also been expecting to find it a little creepy, but it was actually quite heartwarming to see the names and dates and some of the writing on the grave markers on this small plot of land.
Another lake brought us to a small formal garden area adjoining the main building at the top of the estate and gardens and brought this walk to an end.
Time limits. Time. Time and excursions. There’s either never enough or there’s too much, and this day’s excursion as a whole was a great example of this problem. Of course you have to compromise when you’re on a group tour but we weren’t alone in thinking this while we waited for our bus to return because we got talking to fellow passengers who said the same thing. Our conclusion from the full day of first visiting Dublin, having free time there, then heading off on this excursion to Powerscourt Estate and Gardens was that we could have done with perhaps half an hour more in Dublin and half an hour less at the gardens. The gardens were lovely but we’d seen all we could really see well within the amount of time we had to spend and ended up just hanging around at the end. We had too much time at Powerscourt for what we could admire in the gardens, yet not enough to get out to the waterfall and back, and we felt that with this in mind we would have appreciated longer in Dublin to perhaps hit a museum.
But we did enjoy Powerscourt Estate and Gardens, and later in the year with more colour and interest around and the likelihood of a warmer day and slower walking then the time there might have felt more suitable and made the cruise excursion overall feel better-balanced.
In the next short post in this Regal Princess British Isles cruise travelogue series there are some brief views of Dún Laoghaire as we tender back to the ship – and some thoughts about that – along with the evening meal aboard as we head off towards the next port of call, Belfast.