V and I went to County Wexford, which is a two hour drive, to pick something up (and I will tell you all about in another post, soon) and decided that since we were all the way out there, we'd make a day of it.
When we were done with our "bidness", we visited the town of Enniscorthy, since it was so close.
First stop (after parking) was St. Aidan's Cathedral.
Of course, genius that I am, I forgot to take a photo of it from the outside... good job, right? Here's one that I found on the internet (right here, in fact).
The inside of the cathedral is absolutely, mind-blowingly gorgeous. See... I'm not the type of tourist who actually enjoys going inside all these churches and cathedrals. Why? Well, so far for me, they're all pretty much the same. Super high rafters, some amazing pillars, some gildy-gildedness, some more gilded overdoneness, and usually a statue or twelve.
But this one was different, somehow. I found myself really taking it all in, and appreciating all the work (hand painting and stenciling, specifically) that went into restoring this church to its original splendor.
When visiting the many churches (as one does as a tourist in a religious country), I really get enjoyment from the stained glass windows. They are always, ALWAYS beautiful, and St. Aidan's Cathedral did not disappoint.
These were truly some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I've seen. My photos do them NO justice at all. Just imagine them to be about 15x more saturated, with super amazing details and workmanship than what my photos show, and you're almost getting the idea.
I found out how this church wards off vampires, turns water into wine, keeps their holy water, though!
Copper is good for keeping the bacteria away... so that's good I guess. I suppose they could just refill the water daily and bless it - but maybe that's too much
Next, we went to visit Enniscorthy Castle.
There was a mob of
I have to admit - this is such a bright, warm, and cheerful looking castle on the inside. Maybe it's just because when we lived in a historic old cottage, it was dark, cold, damp, and miserable and that's just my expectation. The only room that compared to our old place was the dungeon, and even that was well lit. Of course the light in the Enniscorthy Castle is partly to do with the lovely huge windows, and partly to do with the insane amount of track lighting they put in it... but no matter, I really enjoyed walking around it. The floors are GORGEOUS!!! Note to self for if we ever get to build our own home...
After our little self-guided tour of the castle, we did my favorite thing ever! Thrift shopping!
Yes. That is a second hand shop where proceeds go to Orphanages in Chernobyl. Seemed funny to me, but what the hay. We found some great stuff! Check it out!
1. Stoneware coffee cups and saucers!
Confession: I never drank coffee out of an actual coffee cup until moving to Ireland, and now I'm hooked. Drinking out of a mug has its time and place, but on the rare occasion I do drink coffee at home anymore - it will be out of these.
2. A 1 pint glass measuring cup.
The best part of this cup is not that it's just one Pint... but because it has both pints and litres and milliliters. Yay for conversion! As if that wasn't great enough, look at the back:
Grams to pounds, liters to pints, oh my!
3. New duds. Literally.
Each of us found three new shirts, barely worn and in wonderful condition - some even with their original tags attached! Hooray for new shirts! V has been in serious need for some time, and for me - it's a matter of trying to be more stylish and dressing nicely for him when he comes home at the end of his day.
Speaking of coming to the end of things...
Our homemade wine project is nearly complete!!! Look for a guest post from V on the process very soon!!
All in all, it was a very good day and we really enjoyed the time away together.
How did you spend your saturday?
