The Beautiful Tourin House & Gardens, Co. Waterford ♥

On Saturday we went off exploring again and ended up once again in the beautiful Blackwater Valley, this time at the stunning Tourin House and Gardens, a place we had never been before and which we discovered from the 'Waterford Garden Trail' notice in the park in Lismore.

I wasn't sure what to expect from our visit but we ended up having one of the loveliest summer days we've ever had. If you're looking for a place that can give you and your family all the simple delights of summer during one visit, then Tourin House and Gardens is it.

Entry to the gardens is €5 each (children are free) and it's an extra €5 if you'd like a tour of the house - we didn't do the house tour.

As a family we like to go to beautiful places where the boys can make their own fun. If there's a playground there all well and good, but in most cases, like in Tourin House and Gardens, there's not, so they resort to climbing trees, running on lawns, fruit picking, paddling in streams and rivers, etc. and it's always so lovely to see them embracing nature on our little adventures.

Tourin House and Gardens boasts one of the loveliest walled gardens I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. It had the most beautifully scented roses, all in bloom during our visit and lots of other beautiful flowers that drew in lots of butterflies and bees.

It also had lots of fruit to be picked - which the boys wholeheartedly took part in. There were empty punnets on the ground that visitors can fill up and pay for at the end of their visit. We paid €5 for a huge punnet of red berries and cherries.

They were absolutely destroyed in pink fruit stains after our walk around the walled garden, but sure, what's summer without a bit of fruit picking?

Seeing the boys having so much fun and really enjoying picking the fruit is one of my favourite memories from our summer so far. It's the simple things like this which we enjoy most and I love that Tourin House and Gardens brought us this opportunity. We actually knew nothing about the place before our visit, so all these little surprises on our way around the grounds were lovely.

After the walled garden we made our way down to the little quay by the River Blackwater, where we had a little picnic under the shade of a tree - much needed after the sweltering sun that we were in for the majority of our visit. The boys were able to paddle in the water off the quay and they were so happy splashing each and wadding through the water. Such a simple thing but these boys of mine love the water and will happily go into the water full clothed if it means they get to splash about!

Our visit to Tourin House and Gardens might sound simple and boring to some but honestly it was the loveliest day for us and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. If you want to make your visit to Waterford an even more fun day out for the kids you could do what we did and stop by the fab playground in Lismore and go to the beautiful sandy Whiting Bay for a dip before heading home.

Our boys slept well after our little adventure and we'll definitely go back to Tourin House and Gardens one day.

Here are some more pictures from our visit because I really want to share just how beautiful this place is.

If you're looking for more beautiful places to visit along the Blackwater Valley check out my posts on Lismore Castle Gardens, Ballysaggartmore Towers and Cappoquin House and Gardens..