Glendalough Upper Lake,Ireland

Glendalough is one of Ireland's most visited destinations. It offers stunning natural landscapes, picturesque mountain walks and crystal clear lakes. Let me guide you through this remarkable place today. Glendalough is extremely popular among both tourists and locals as it's only within an hour drive from Dublin and you can easily get there even with the public transport. Glendalough is literally translated from Irish as the valley of two lakes. This valley was formed by a glacier during the last ice age. As the name states we can expect two lakes here. The lower lake you see now is the smaller one and the larger one is unsurprisingly called the upper lake and we are heading there. Usually it takes about 25 minutes to walk from the visitor center to the upper lake but I'd advise planning some extra time as I bet you'll need it to take lots of great photos. The upper lake is part of the Wicklow Mountains National Park and serves as a home for wildlife and even rare birds fishes. I absolutely adore this peaceful and calming view of the valley. There's also a coffee point next to the upper lake where you can grab a coffee and hot meals to get ready for exploring the coastline. The lake itself is one and a half kilometer length, half kilometer width and reaches 30 meters depth at the deepest point. The upper lake is the starting point for nine walking trails. The walks vary from a short half-hour stroll to the ones you can spend the whole day on. I also suggest planning some extra time in advance to ensure you have enough time to take your greatest shots or just admire the views. Today I'll take the Minos road walk also known as a purple route. It's considered an easy walk and covers distance of five kilometers so you could imagine it will take us about an hour to get to the final point. This walk skirts one side of the upper lake and finally leads us to the ruined Minos village. We are passing through the Scots pine woodland. It looks especially colorful in autumn, isn't it? As you can see we follow the wide paved road but I still recommend waterproof footwear as it's pretty wet here and it's island, you know, it can start raining anytime even if there was not a single cloud in the sky just five minutes ago. If you take a closer look here you might notice a cave on the opposite shore. This cave is named Saint Kevin's bed and reputedly it has been Saint Kevin's retreat for several years. And Saint Kevin is an Irish saint who apparently lived in the 6th century and is known as the founder and the first abbot of Glendalough. There's also an early Christian monastic settlement here in Glendalough. I'll show it a bit later and yeah it was founded by Saint Kevin and finally developed into the monastic city. Even though you see that the water in the lake is crystal clear, when you look from distance it seems to have a dark peony color which is caused by water runoff from the nearby bug. By the way I have a drone video from the upper lake on my youtube channel so feel free to check it out if you're looking for more stunning aerial views of the lake. As we are getting closer to the miners village the greenery is being replaced with a more rocky landscape. Kamaderi mountain which is 699 meters high overlooks the upper Glendalough lake from the north shore and it contains a mineral which is a source of lead and also contains traces of silver. That's why mining started here at the very beginning of the 19th century and finally mining ceased completely after 1957. If you're lucky you can come across wild animals, most likely goats, deer and birds. And I remember I promised to show you the monastic city. This settlement was founded in the 6th century but most of the buildings you see date back to the 10th and 12th centuries. Probably the most impressive building here is the round tower which stands 13 meters high and the Saint Mary's church you see now. I also have a separate aerial video with the monastic city on my channel so please check it out. Thank you so much for taking this trip with me today hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and if you're looking for traveling ideas across Ireland or just interested in seeing more videos about this unbelievably beautiful country please subscribe to my channel This is Ireland. See you soon!