I’m back from a two week vacation in Europe with my husband Jake. The longest vacation we’ve ever taken. It was a unique opportunity to disengage from daily routines, stressors, and the news and explore beautiful ancestral landscapes. We always get great weather when we go on vacation–even when it rains, we have the right clothing and the rain was well-timed.
Leading up to this trip I made a very detailed itinerary with contingency plans for fatigue, weather, and even extra time. I prepped the garden for the long neglectful period by pulling spent plants, scheduling irrigation, and freezing a lot of produce. I packed a book, my sketchbook and travel paints, and a tiny journal. With the house and dogs sorted we were off to rediscover who we are when we’re not spending so much time working.
Jake was the driver and we spent a lot of time driving on this trip. We never stayed in one place for more than two nights and he had to refresh himself on how to drive manual on the opposite side of the road. After a few days on the narrow winding country roads I was comfortable enough to begin sketching from the passenger seat. I did a few composite sketches of the bristly windswept landscape while bumping along.
We did a ton of hiking in Ireland and spent a lot of time outside. Waterfalls, beaches, and scenic glens called us around the remote northern Donegal County. The landscape was decompressing and enlivening. There was a cheerfulness about the greenery meeting the sparkling ocean and rainbows around every corner. It wasn’t cold, and it wasn’t warm, and it wasn’t dry, but it also wasn’t sopping wet. The weather was like a piece of pie; a delicious treat that you wouldn’t want every day.
We saw the tallest sea-cliffs in all of Europe at Slieve League after a very long hike from the furthest parking lot, and then had the best Tuna melt of my life at the Slieve League Cafe.
I will do an entire separate post on food, but besides food, the most personally inspiring element of Ireland was Glenveagh National Park and The Glenveagh Castle Gardens. The inside of the castle was closed on the day that we visited, which was a disappointment but we spent hours exploring the many acres of themed castle gardens. Our favorite being the kitchen garden which featured so many familiar crops that we grow at home, but bigger, and planted in impressive tiered boarders and rows. They had the biggest cabbage I’ve ever seen, and apple and pear trees trellised onto fences and archways.
I took so many photos of that garden that don’t do it any justice but I loved the way that the gardeners layered chamomile, kales, and rainbow chard to line the walk-paths with color you can eat. The beautiful lesson that I need to remember in my own garden is that variety is beautiful when it comes to maintenance. Some spots can be crowded and overgrown, and brown does not have to be ugly. As long as there’s a trimmed lawn or a tidy row nearby it all still looks loved.
Other plants that I loved in the garden were a grouping of calendula, borage, and beets. There were Japanese Anemones, roses, begonias, and towering hollyhock. A shocking invasive was a tree-rhododendron! So much like my bushes at home but three-stories tall with leaves the size of my head.
