Ladies Lunch and Picnic Dinner

We were still having really nice weather but the "heatwave" was over, so we decided to go for lunch at Powerscourt Estate. My mother, Lauren and I drove out to the Wicklow Mountains. I'm gonna really miss seeing these mountains all the time! They are just always so green and beautiful. We had a lovely lunch at their Avoca Cafe. 

L eating her lunch - pasta of course!

Our outdoor view from our table...simply gorgeous!

After lunch we went and checked out the Tara's Palace museum. I had heard that they had a huge dollhouse and I thought L would enjoy seeing it. 

The dollhouse dates back to the early 1900's when an Irish craftsman was commissioned to build a doll palace. It was called Titania's Palace. It was furnished with exquisite miniatures from all over the world. The dollhouse toured the world, raising money for children's charities. 

In 1967 the owners were not able to tour anymore with the dollhouse, so they sold the palace at Christies in London in aid of children's charities. The purchaser offered it to the Irish Government but the offer was not followed up. Titania's Palace left Ireland, and remained in England for many years. In 1978, it was put up for auction again in Christies. Ron McDonnell, head of the Irish Antique dealers was confident that they could buy the palace back for Ireland. They did not have enough money to compete with Legoland Denmark, who paid 135,000 pounds to take it to Legoland. So Ron and his colleagues decided to try and build a second one for Ireland. They commissioned Irish master craftsmen to build a new miniature palace, modeled on 3 great Irish houses. They named the new building "Tara's Palace", in honor of the fairy princess Tara. Tara's Palace took over 20 years to build and furnish. It contains 22 rooms. Following the tradition of Titania's Palace, Tara's Palace raises money for children's charities. 

The chandeliers and crystal on the table are all Waterford crystal - stunning!

The detail in all the rooms was just incredible. They had mirrors on the floor of each of the rooms so you could see the detail on the ceilings. 

There was even a little chapel

The middle of the house was the garden

They also had a lot of classic toys for children and some very very old dollhouses. I think the oldest dollhouse they had dated to the 1700's.

Rolls Royce

View of the Wicklow Mountains from the museum

This was a smaller dollhouse from the mid 1900's

It was a cute little museum and L enjoyed it. Actually I really enjoyed it too...it makes me want to build my own dollhouse at home and decorate it! We had a lovely drive back to the house in time for K and T. Then we decided to all go into town for "late night". I had to take advantage of late night since soccer was over and we only have 10 more days here. Remember late night is when all the stores are open until 9pm instead of 6pm. We took the bus into town and did a little shopping. We decided to just get McDonalds to go and have a little picnic dinner in St. Stephen's Green. The weather was sunny and just perfect! 

St. Stephen's Green is a public park in the city centre. The park was opened to the public in 1880. Its right next to Grafton Street. It was pretty crowded that evening when we were there. 

L feeding the ducks her bread from the hamburger, she saved it just for the ducks

The entrance into the park from Grafton Street

We then walked down to Henry Street and did a little more shopping before we took the bus back to Glasnevin.