And So It Begins

It's been a busy day- er, two days.  The time change is very confusing.  Due to changing time zones, we only experienced about 16 of Tuesday's 24 hours.  That is, 24 hours passed on Tuesday, but we only felt 16 of them.  I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that.

     We arrived in Dublin at 4:45 in the morning.  After getting adjusted to the rental car and the roads (luckily there's not much traffic at 5:30 in the morning), we headed out to the countryside.  Actually, there aren't really many suburbs, so it just goes from city to fields.  After meandering around for awhile, we stopped at a graveyard with a tower that was built long ago by monks. 

 

Then we just puttered around until the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre opened.  Brú na Bóinne is the collective centre for the three largest Neolithic chamber mounds in the world, Knowth, Newgrange, and Dowth, in that order.  

                                        Knowth, with smaller mounds in front

                                                              Newgrange

Chamber mounds are burial mounds with one main chamber, where the rituals were performed.  They are 5,200 years old- 500 years older than the pyramids, and 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.  Newgrange especially is and architectural marvel, because after 5,000 plus years, no water has ever leaked into the chamber.  That's mainly due to the construction of the chamber's ceiling.

This isn't the ceiling of the actual chamber.  You're not allowed to take pictures inside the mound.  The is inside a scale replica of the inside of the mound.  We did get to go inside the real thing, though.  It was really cool, especially when all the lights were switched off and it was pitch black.

     When we were done at Brú na Bóinne, we headed into Trim, where we are spending the night.  After getting lost a few times, then having lunch, we walked over to Trim Castle.  The ruins of and entire keep and fortress are scattered through the town.  A significant amount of the main keep is still there, and you can go inside on tours.  We'll probably do that tomorrow morning.

There are also the remains of the wall, the defenses, and old churches, one said to be founded by St. Patrick himself.  These are spread from the centre of town out to the fields.

     I guess that's enough for one night.  We're all pretty tired.  Dad calculated that we've been awake for 33 hours straight.  Tomorrow we head down to Kinsale, with plenty of stops along the way.