The Irish National Stud and Gardens then on to Malahide

After breakfast our destination was The Irish National Stud and Gardens then on to our hotel in Malahide. We had to drop off the car and arrange taxi service for an early morning flight.

The Tea House

The Irish National Stud and Gardens are incredibly gorgeous and steeped in history. They are reached by following the signs on M9 North. There is so much beauty to see there, Chris and I spent over 4 hours wandering the pastures, stalls, gardens and museum. We even had a delicious lunch there.

There is a nominal fee to get in. The first thing we visited was the beautiful Japanese Garden designed by master horticulturist Tassa Eida of Japan, between 1906–1910. The garden takes you through the journey of the life of man.

Mare and her foal

We walked out of the gate surrounding the Japanese Gardens and entered the roads taking you through the horse farm.

There are beautiful fenced pastures containing many gorgeous mares and their foals. The foals were very friendly and we could actually stroke them.

Then we turned a corner and entered the pastures where the studs were housed. They each had a sign with their lineage and stud fee and how much prize money they had won, among other information.

These horses are some of the most beautiful horses I have ever seen.

Invincible Spirit

St. Fiachra's Garden

There is a guided tour but we just decided we would rather walk around and experience it in our own way. It was drizzly and not very crowded so we could just stand and watch the horses or saunter up various roads that take you between the different areas of the compound.

A Stone Hut in St. Fiachra's Garden

We eventually made our way over to the entrance to St. Fiachra's Garden. This is a huge and magnificent parklike garden. Paths lead to ponds, streams, stone huts, statues and meander among beautiful flowers and shrubs.

We began worrying about time at this point and we were hungry so we went back to the visitors center where they have a cafeteria with pretty good food. We each had paninis, Chris had pasta salad and I had an excellent broccoli salad with hazelnuts.

After lunch we spent some time visiting the small museum and the foaling stalls. We also visited the stall containing the Falabellas horses. They are a rare breed of Argentinian miniature horses and only a few thousand exist worldwide.

We headed back to the car and continued on our way to Malahide.
We were staying at the Grand Hotel so we checked in there, got back in the car and drove to Dublin airport Hertz. After dropping off the car we took a cab back to the hotel. Our very nice cab driver shared lots of information about Dublin and Malahide and the Malahide Castle with it's 5 ghosts.

Unfortunately we were so tired by this time that we didn't have the energy to go and see the castle. We took a little walk downtown, then headed back to our hotel for dinner and a couple of Guinness before going to bed so we could be ready for the 3:30 AM wake up call.

Tomorrow, Air France and home.