The gardens at Powerscourt may be the prettiest in Ireland. Not only the layout of gardens itself contribute to their beauty, so do the surroundings. As you should have seen on this picture if it had been a bright day, the gardens lie at the foot of the Great Sugar Loaf Mountain.

At Powerscourt there's something called a Japanese garden. It certainly looks very oriental with those nice little red bridges, but it's definitely NOT Japanese.

The Powerscourt House burnt down a couple of years ago, which was a pity because it was supposed to be really beautiful. The restoration goes on, and the outside looked already better than we had expected from the guidebooks.

There is not only a Japanese garden, but also an Italian garden and an English garden. There is no Irish garden, but the Irish houses throughout the country do not seem to have much of a garden.

As a special attraction, there is a pet cemetery. Here lie several cats and dogs, some ponies and even a cow. She gave over 100,000 gallons of milk, so she was probably too dear to the family to send her to the slaughter.

A short distance from the Powerscourt House and gardens is the Powerscourt waterfall. This is the highest waterfall in Ireland, but there is some confusion about the exact height. In most guidebooks you'll find a height of 130 meters, but in one book we've also read 9 meters.After we'd seen the waterfall ourselves, we decided 9 meters is ridiculous and 130 meters is correct. You wouldn't be surprised to hear the waterfall looks better when it rains, when there is more water to fall.