Ireland day 0861. Tuesday 06 February 2024- Botanics by Car *

Ireland day 0861. Tuesday 06 February 2024- Botanics by Car

Today’s summary	Drove into Glasnevin to visit the Botanic Gardens with Val. Easy drive in but extremely slow coming back. Lots to see and plenty of flowers. A relaxing day out followed by Spanish / Pilates in the evening
Today’s weather	Rained hard all morning, dried up after lunch but heavy cloud and no sun. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 8c

Today’s overview location (The red mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The red line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

It was pouring with rain when we got up this morning, and although that didn’t deter Val from heading off steadfastly round the demesne for a run, it certainly dissuaded me from the notion of taking the bus and train into Dublin to visit the Glasnevin Botanic Gardens.

But we weren’t going to give up on our mission because we (well me, if we’re honest) like to visit the gardens at this time of year, to linger in the greenhouses and pretend, albeit briefly, that I am somewhere far away, languid under a subtropical sun. So, once Val was back from her run, we decided we would try driving, rather than train and bus-ing in. We would start the day’s explorations with lunch at the garden café and then a look round the grounds.

The drive in was very straightforward – it took only just over 20 minutes, and the route was easy to follow. And because it was so wet, visitors were deterred so the car park had plenty of space and the café was at least half empty. The gardens themselves were looking good, and just waking from their winter hibernation. Bulbs were coming up and in the Alpine house, there were some beautiful daffodils cheerily showing their faces.

But the highlights for me are always the greenhouses, and especially the Curvilinear Range, which houses the temperate collection. It was full, today, of Strelitzias (Bird of Paradise flowers – as seen in the banner image at the top), Bougainvilleas, Jasminiums and many more. Real Mediterranean medicine for the soul.

We’d finished looking around by about 4pm so decided to leave early to avoid the rush hour traffic. Unfortunately it didn’t work out well, as the 17 km (11mi) journey back to Malahide was heavily congested and took us well over an hour – most of which was spent stationary. I could almost have walked it quicker! Anyway it was an interesting “learning experience” as they say and didn’t detract from a relaxing yet revitalising day out. And now I need to go and get my things together, ready to apply my vim and vigour to tonight’s Spanish class!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Miniature daffodils in all their delicate splendour in the Alpine House	Here we are in all our delicate splendour too

Inside the cacti house. To be pedantic, at least half the specimens aren’t cacti (New World), rather they are evolutionally convergent but distinct succulents (Old World)	Val checking into the Curvilinear House – probably my favourite – with the magnificent scented Jasmine growing up the wall behind her

Bougainvillea – possibly my favourite flower in the world (although, continuing pedantically, the pink bits aren’t flowers at all, they are bracts)	I continue to worry about he magnificent multi-trunked Sequoia which greets you as you enter the gardens – at least one of the trunks appears to be dead, to me (and the others look a bit sick, too)

The magnificent Jasmine filling the greenhouse with a sweet Mediterranean scent