My love for Enniskerry started a long time ago, after watching (over and over) the wonderful, perfect and troubling “PS: I love you”. I actually lived close by that area for a short time, while living in Ireland, but I guess it took Gerard Butler’s accent, along with his singing and other charms, to really set it forever in the stone of my heart. 
I was writing the other day about the many hidden gems you can fall in love with, if you ever decide to visit Ireland, today I will try to give you a little peek into one of the most beautiful estates I ever had the luck to set eyes on. 
The Powerscourt Estate, precisely, the Powerscourt Gardens, is a large country castle-house in Enniskerry, County Wicklow. It dates back into 13th century, changing and being modified over the years, has burned down in 1974 and was completely restored only in 1996. 
As any beautiful and historic place, especially a small castle, it has many classic touches of beauty, Italian architecture, German and even Japanese added to the local print, but I found it streamed in originality, culture and even a very fine touch of humor. The manor is mostly shopping center for gifts, hand-made dolls, fresh and traditional food, we chose not to go in, I hate shopping and crowded places, gave it a quick look and we were out the door into that glorious display of gardens and history. 
If you have a big focus capacity and manage to ignore the people around taking pictures, and you look down from the entrance, you can almost hear the horse hoofs gently stepping onto the stone all around, you can almost see the carriages that they used to have back then.
I have to confess that I was more impressed by the sight of the gardens then when I visited Versailles a good decade before Ireland and that in itself its huge, as I was always a great fan of France and French culture and history. 
Maybe because Versailles was very very crowded and noisy, Irish people are more laid back, they take their time in everything they do, and a mark of theirs is the talent to take in any experience, they absorb it, and keep it inside, rather then talk about it loudly and endlessly. 
So you start at the top of those stairs and statues and terraces, its all so Italian with many statues, the pair of life sized winged horses that watch over the Triton lake being the crown of the collection, and so perfectly groomed, you don’t even realize the subtle change from one zone to another until you start to have a different vibe or feeling. 
Every part is very well done, to perfection. The clean Italian lines disappear in Julia’s Memorial Garden,
then the Japanese Gardens take over 
and you could swear you are indeed on the other side of the world.
The lines are clear, and the atmosphere is very ZEN, but the human touch is almost unnoticeable, very discreet. The stroll takes you then unto the Irish
“bit”,with the tower and cannons, 
hidden well in the midst of immense hundred-year-old trees (and yes, you can go into the tower, all the way to the roof, that’s my head in the picture, at the top)
and finally you end up near a very…shall we say “interesting”…pet cemetery
where I finally found Black Beauty’s resting spot
, but all I could think about was Stephen King’s book… And, if any of this didn’t impress so far, the estate is only 6 km away from the Powerscourt Waterfall, Ireland’s highest, almost 400 feet, at the foothills of the Wicklow Mountains.
For those who are romantic and do NOT think of Stephen King while visiting, they also do weddings there, it certainly has the fairy tale look that would make any modern-day princess wannabe, happy.
(to be continued) …
