Tankardstown House near Slane

Tankardstown House, main house

Day 2, Tankardstown House

What a wonderful to start our tour of Ireland. This gorgeous country estate is a surprise at every corner. We are in the old stables building, which is one of a series of attached stone buildings at the rear of the main house used for accommodation, bars, spas and restaurants. The grounds are a variety of formal walled gardens with ‘desire line’ paths and statues everywhere (no gargoiles). The vegetable garden that serves the restaurant is at the rear of the grounds in an enclosed garden. Fabulous beds of vegetables are set out in a formal pattern of intersecting paths. No idea what half the vegetables were but we ate some at the restaurant in the evening and made for some interesting meals.

The Tankardstown restaurant was a treat. It took us quite a while to decipher what was an option in the menu. For example how many of you would know what do to with: 
- Peter Callaghan's leg and shoulder, water cress custard, raw carrot and micro leaves.

-or Boxi potato, roast leg tortellini, crispy wing and egg, morel  sauce.

Anyway we were game to try as mush as possible and it was all blissfully good. Could happily stay on and work our way through the whole menu.

Bumble bees hover over a bed of lavender giving a taste of France. Even a wonderful yellow snail entranced me.

No 3G network out here so having trouble getting the phones onto the local network. Hopefully can get it done when we are near a larger town. At least we have wifi here.

Restaurant garden

Old stables rooms

Stone walled garden