The next day we traveled to our next B&B in the town of Edenderry, through the rolling green hills which soon turned into the flat marshes of the midlands. Many tourists tend to avoid the midlands claiming them to be boring, and not nearly as beautiful as Ireland’s coasts, but in doing so they avoid a large part of Irish history, its peat bogs. Peat is quite important to the Irish and it is used for everything from fuel to Christmas ornaments.
Once we unloaded our stuff, we trotted off to Kildare – the home of Saint Bridget. Kildare is a beautiful little town, with tiny cottages, quaint pubs, and a large cathedral (said to have been used by Bridget and by pagan priestesses before her). At the Cathedral there is a tower we climbed, which has no stairwells. We could only get to the top of this tremendous tower by way of ladders inside it. It was very scary at first but the view was well worth the frightening climb.
After leaving the Cathedral we went to the famous Kildare stud farms and Japanese gardens, only a five minute drive away. The Japanese gardens were a maze based around the changes that happen in life from birth to marriage to death. The stud farms surround the Japanese gardens and lakes, a nice walk and a great place to have a picnic on a warm Irish afternoon. Our last stop that day was to a little known place where Saint Bridget would go to retrieve water, called St. Bridget’s well. The well is about three miles from the Cathedral – quite a hike for St. Bridget, but a nice spot to get away from the crowds of the Stud farms and Japanese Gardens.
Probably one of our favorite places, suggested to us by friends, was a place called Glendalough. Glendalough is another former monastic community begun by St. Kevin, which is now a tourist hot-spot for good reason. Glendalough means “The Glen of the Two Lakes”, and is one of the most spiritual and beautiful places in Ireland. To get there from the Midlands we had to drive to the eastern coast of Ireland, 
over very steep and very beautiful purple mountains dotted by little white, blue and pink puffballs (also known as sheep) through a chilly morning mist. Once we got to the top of the Wicklow Mountains, were able to look down on Glendalough and its two crystal clear lakes.
Like many places in Ireland, Glendalough is essentially the ruins of a former monastic community; however its feeling is very different. The houses are surrounded by thousands of graves dating from hundreds of years ago to just fifty years ago. After scouring the ruins, we were able to hike up the mountain to see St. Kevin’s own little beehive hut, where he went to get away from the crowds of the monastery. At St. Kevin’s hut we were able to see a beautiful lake below us, and it is stated that it was here that when a saucy young lass came to seduce the pious Kevin, he took her and threw her into the lake below trying to “cool her off”. Here in Glendalough one feels away from the world (even with the crowds); and the forests, waterfalls and lakes gave us a very peaceful feeling.
The next day was our longest driving day, since we drove back across the entire country to our next destination: Ashford castle. It was a long driving day (about five hours across the country), but thanks to the very clean and easy Irish highways it was quite easy. Once we got to Ashford castle we were quite tired, but once we saw the castle we woke right up!