Then we stopped in a town where Mel Gibson chose the castle he filmed Braveheart in (even though its in Ireland not Scotland).
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| Scotty and Me in front of the Castle |
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| Newgrange |
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| The opening of the Tomb |
Finally, even though it was extremely rainy but we decided to go ahead with our plans and go to an ancient tomb called Newgrange. "Newgrange was constructed over 5,000 years ago (about 3,200 B.C.), making it older than Stonehenge in England and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Newgrange was built during the Neolithic or New Stone Age by a farming community that prospered on the rich lands of the Boyne Valley." - www.newgrange.com :)
Anyway, so we got there and all over the parking lot were signs that said "thieves steal from this lot, park at your own risk." But that was silly because where else were we going to park! The signs got Scotty all nervous but it was a really rainy day and during off season so mom and I convinced him that it would be fine! Then we went inside to the visitors center and they told us a tour was just about to leave to we walked out and got on the shuttle that would take us to the actual tomb. Once at the tomb it was raining really hard so instead of standing outside the tomb for the beginning of the tour they took us inside. to get inside you had to walk down a really, really narrow passage way (basically the width of my body) (good thing there weren't any large people on the tour haha). And then we had to stand in a very small room in the middle of the tomb. The ceiling was really high and there were three small "rooms" on the three sides of the main room where most likely remains were placed. All the walls and ceilings were made by placing very large stones tightly together so it held up the structure. It was so cool!! And kind of eerie! Then we were told that the reason Newgrange is so amazing is because one day a year (the winter solstice) just after sunrise sunlight comes through a 12 inch "window" just above the door to the tomb and it hits the crooked rising entry way just right so the room in the tomb is flooded with light...it stays like that for a few hours until the sun moves and the room become dark again just like every other day of the year. Crazy that people could figure out how to do something like that!!
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| Me in the rain! |
After the tour we wandered around the museum and read all about the tombs and the other ones like it. It was really interesting! Then we got back into the car (don't worry it didn't get broken into!) before we headed the rest of the way to Dublin!
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| Wine Cellar |
Once in Dublin we went to our hotel (Scotty was so nice and got me my own queen room! Best weekend of sleep ever!!!) and we relaxed for a while before going downstairs to the hotel bar restaurant for dinner. The restaurant was so cool! The walls were all rock and a lot of the tables were in little rooms by themselves and the food just like everywhere in Ireland was amazing!!! Later we went back to our rooms to get a good nights sleep before I big day the next day!
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| Hallway down the |
restaurant
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