Outside the Swiss Cottage
It seemed that I arrived at the Swiss Cottage close to closing time and there weren’t that many visitors anymore for the day. I was told to wait a bit for more visitors since there was a guided tour. I was promised a quick tour if no one arrives within ten minutes. Ten minutes came and went and I was on tour. The guide was a nice lady who showed me the place. The design of the Swiss Cottage isn’t even Swiss for starters. It is actually a cottage orné, built when people wanted a place which is more in tune with nature.
Closer Look at the Swiss Cottage
It is surprising to know this kind of thinking existed back then. Perhaps the abundance of baroque or neo-classical architecture made people a bit more stressed. The Swiss Cottage was more of a play house than an actual residence. I was told that people never really slept here and rather just came here to have tea and just relax. Unfortunately, it is not allowed to take photos of the inside of the cottage. The guide took pains to point out several interesting features of the cottage, like how the windows don’t align with each other. Or how one is bigger than the other. The floor isn’t exactly flat, or how the door follows the shape of the roof.
I thought these were very interesting features and they were made intentionally to follow nature. Even the floor pattern was done in a shape of a cobweb, just like nature. The walls of the rooms had interesting wallpaper which may look a bit gaudy by modern standards. I won’t consider it very nature-y to have wallpaper like that all over the room. It was pointed out that the wallpaper was one of the first manufactured in Ireland, it even has the name of the manufacturer on the wallpaper itself. I liked the tour I was given, it wasn’t too heavy and it was detailed enough to keep me interested. I don’t know what else is in the full tour since my guide told me a lot of details. When we got down, there was another group waiting for us. I think they would also have a nice time.
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