Luxury at BrookLodge Hotel and Spa,Wicklow

Macreddin Village,BrookLodge and Wells Spa

 A yearly treat for myself and friends is an overnight trip to BrookLodge luxury hotel in county Wicklow. It’s just approximately one hour and thirty minutes from where I live in North Dublin on the motorway then onto some country roads, where satnav is needed as with all older Irish roads, the signage can disappear for large chunks of the road, but we always make it there, and the landscape on the drive up is beautifully breath taking, and always so lush and green! 

Every time we come and go, we are also reminded why tourists love coming to Ireland!

    So this year there were three sharing a room, one double and a single, we were lucky to get a fantastic deal, one night bed and breakfast, and hour treatment and a three course meal for their Italian restaurant La Taverna Armento. All deals can be found on their Website, or do what we do every year and email them directly.

So on June 7^th we packed up the car, grabbed some snacks for the trip, got the playlist sorted and headed off, we were fortunate enough to be arriving on a Sunday with a Macreddin village market on, we arrived to a busy atmosphere of shoppers and food taster, parked up the car and browsed through the home-made goods that were on offer, there was a mix of fresh fruit and vegetables, a smoothie/juice stand, home-made jams, sauces and pickles. I bought a delicious raspberry jam.

Within Macreddin village there is a pub called Actons, the famous Strawberry Tree restaurant, and our personal favourite, the Italian restaurant Armento. We sat outside the Actons with live jazz music playing and sipped on diet coke, and had roasted hog baps with freshly roasted potato salad.

 We checked in then and got ourselves ready for the spa and our treatment, each person had a bathrobe,slippers and some beautiful hair and body products. 

We each chose to have the Decleor aromatherapy facial, and luckily they could have us all at the same time, the facial was fantastic, the girls were highly professional and welcoming, the products are luxurious and we really felt pampered, not too often do you feel that.

 Afterwards we were given a smoothies and shown to the relaxation room that played soft calming music on the most comfortable “deck style chairs.”

 We then made our way into the pool area, here they have also a jacuzzi, steam room, sauna and aromatherapy room, as well as an outside hot tub, which much to our disappointment was closed for maintenance.  The pool area is half in a conservatory and also has a section as a hydrotherapy pool.  After a quick dip in the pool, we sat in the Jacuzzi then sweated any toxins out in the aromatherapy sauna room, my first time experiencing something like that, and it was refreshing.

  Our reservation for Armento was 8pm and so with three girls to get ready we headed to the room, now to only two small criticisms of the hotel, there isn’t enough plug sockets… in fact there is one socket, not really convenient for even a couple sharing a room, but we had to manage, and the second, the showers are slightly older and so the ease of controlling temperature can be difficult and we had to have maintenance up to adjust the shower for us.

The food in Armento is always delicious and vibrant, and getting such high quality, flavourful food at thirty -five euro a head is fantastic. For starter I had baked prawns, for the main course I had pizza which you can choose from a selection of toppings, I had prosciutto, goat’s cheese, olives and red onions, and for dessert I had my favourite, tiramisu! Always a treat!

At the back of the hotel there is now a fire pit with benches surrounding, and we sat there until 11.30pm and chatted in the summer heat aided by the fire, it was delightful.

Then headed back to the rooms, I always feel like the hotel is quiet and peaceful nestled in the Wicklow mountains, the beds are comfy and the duvet is heavy and warm. I usually have a good night’s sleep and wake up refreshed for the breakfast that awaits us.

The breakfast is continental style with cooked breakfast to order too, they have a selection of cereal juices, and pastries. Two of us chose the full Irish for breakfast, one of the girls got scrambled eggs which are from the free-range chickens running loose on the land. (you can see them in the picture above)

Everything is tasty and well presented.

Check out is 12 I believe so we packed up and cruised on home, relaxed and refreshed and ready to get back to the grind!

See you next year Brooklodge!

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