The Beautiful Cappoquin House & Gardens, Co. Waterford ♥

Yesterday we went on another little adventure, returning once again to the beautiful Black Water Valley region of County Waterford which has so many beauty spots to offer families who are after a memorable and lovely day out.

We've been busy researching places to visit in the upcoming months and I love photographing them all as part of my Fairy Tale Ireland series - you can search the #fairytaleireland hashtag over on Instagram to see more pictures.

Yesterday's adventure took us to the beautiful Cappoquin House & Gardens, Co. Waterford. I've never been to Cappoquin before but what a quaint little town it was - it was like something from another century.

The house wouldn't show up on Google maps, quite bizarrely, but it's easy to find on the main street of Cappoquin and has 'Cappoquin House & Gardens' on the wall outside.

The house was originally built in the 18th century and rebuilt in the 1920's. It's done beautifully and is a stunning manor house overlooking the countryside with a view of Lismore Castle (you can read about our trip to the real-life fairytale castle, Lismore Castle, here) in the distance.

It's a lovely setting and the gardens are so lovely to stroll around. We parked in the courtyard and were greeted by a friendly man who was tending to the garden, who gave us a brochure and took our donation to enter the gardens. Cappoquin House and Gardens charge a €6 donation per person to enter the gardens and Beau was free to enter.

I'm not actually sure if the house is open for visitors and we weren't offered the chance to go inside, but the brochure says to contact Sir Charles Keane on charles-keane@skynet.be or telephone 0876704180 for groups and special arrangements. We didn't contact anyone prior to visiting and simply turned up for our visited but received a warm welcome and were able to stroll around and enjoy the gardens at our own pace.

I'd highly recommend visiting on a weekday morning if you're planning to go as we had the gardens completely to ourselves and it was so lovely. Beau was able to run around and enjoy the lawns, while Jacek and I sat and took in the beautiful views around us.

The house has a lovely orchard which you can stroll (or run in Beau's case) around. The apples are just beginning to grow and I think if we had visited earlier in the year they'd have been beautiful blooming in apple blossoms.

Here are some more pictures from our visit. I always take and share too many pictures on here but this is like our virtual scrapbook so I like to document these days not only for our own memories, but for people who might be interested in visiting these beautiful places too.

There are so many places to sit dotted around the gardens and everywhere you look there is beauty. The views from the house are amazing and when I visit places like this I'm always reminded of just how much a beautiful place we live in.

The gardens are so peaceful and are a lovely place to come even if you just need an hour or two to gather your thoughts and sit in peace. I sat by the pond for some time in the sunshine while Beau played with a stick of bamboo and the water. It's this quiet, lovely moments that I saviour the most from our outings. The joy that a stick and some water can bring a child is so lovely to witness.

The gardens were filled with flowers of all colours during our visit and they were so well tended to. As we visited in between seasons - end of spring but not quite yet summer in the garden world the rhododendrons and azaleas were still out but the lavender and peonies were blooming too.

If you're a flower lover like myself then the gardens really are worth a visit.

 If you're after a place with old world charm that you can explore to your hearts content then Cappoquin House and Gardens is definitely worth a visit. It's definitely a hidden gem and a spot that offers a lot of beauty and tranquility to it's visitors (which I was in much need of as a mother of two!).

I highly recommend packing a picnic and spending a quiet morning here. It's only €6 to enter (the majority of places we've visited recently have been €6 so it seems to be a standard price) and I think it's nice to support places like this so that they can be enjoyed by future generations too.

You can read more about Cappoquin House and it's history and find out more information about it here.

It's a spot well worthy of fairytale Ireland, that's for sure!