The last two days have been packed. Yesterday was, if I must say so myself having planned it, not optimally planned. I got scared off by the stories of having to get to a particular site an hour outside the city by first thing in the morning in order to be sure to get one of the very limited admission tickets. So I signed us up for a tour that would guarantee admission. There was nothing wrong with the tour, but it left us back in Dublin at 5:00 instead of an hour north, which was the direction we wanted to go, at 3:00.
Today, on the other hand, worked pretty much perfectly, including the weather for once. Yesterday it rained on and off the entire time we were at the sites we were visiting. More props to the umbrella.
What we saw was this, a place of mystical significance called Tara (no sign of Scarlett or any of the O'Hara's anywhere).
And this, a spot called New Grange.
New Grange is what they call a "passage tomb," so called because, according to our archaeological guide, because it has a passage in it and they found human (cremated) remains inside. It's hard to describe the scale of this thing, but you can see people on the right which give you an idea. It was built somewhere around 3600 BC, which would mean probably before the Great Pyramids. I can't argue about the passage part, but nobody is really sure if it was actually a tomb. It could have been a mall for all we know.
There are a bunch of these things around Ireland, but this is one of the few where you can go inside. Pretty cool. The passage goes in 19 meters, a fraction of the diameter of the thing, which is almost perfectly round. Nobody knows what's in the rest of it and probably never will. They only found the one passage by accident. There's an opening above the door where, at sunrise on winter solstice, the sun lights the passageway. Another passage tomb nearby is lit on the equinoxes.
The entrance to New Grange is behind this stone.
The three interlocking swirls on the left are unique to this site. It's a logo! Nobody actually knows what any of this stuff means or who these people were, but it's clear that among them were some megalithic age marketing people. Ronnie is quite sure that they're boobs, which considering that the main feature of Tara is a phallus, makes perfect sense.
Today, we were someplace else entirely.
This is called Giant's Causeway. The mythology behind it is kind of dumb, even for mythology. Something to do with giants fighting about something. Why they needed a causeway and didn't just use boats like everyone else is a mystery for the ages. Maybe it's just another 50,000 phalli.
For some reason, spell check didn't correct that. Is it really a word? Cool. By the way, that's Ronnie sitting in the middle of the phalli.
Honestly, this whole place is crazy. There's nothing that I've seen like it anywhere. I know that one of the things people have said about it is that they're disappointed that the columns aren't bigger or just that it's overall too small, but those people have to be Americans. No other culture would think that this incredible formation is unimpressive just because if its sheer size. And let me tell you, a lot of the formations here are huge. This has got to be well over 100 feet tall.
And one last thing about it, I know it's cool because I heard a whole bunch of little kids and a whole bunch of teenagers walk up and say, "Wow, this is cool."
So back to yesterday. We found ourselves in Dublin at 5 and needing to drive 150 miles north. We called the B&B where we were staying that evening, and they said they'd be out until 10:30, so we figured we had plenty of time. But getting out of town was really hard. Even if I hadn't been driving on the left it would have been hard, and it hardly mattered because we were barely moving anyway.
But we made it out, and drove and drove. First city streets and motorways (aka expressways) and then other major roads with occasional roundabouts (roundabouts deserve their own post) and finally country roads. And at around 9 we finally neared the town of Bushmills, where we were going to eat dinner while we waited for our hosts to arrive, and as we approached the town, we were stopped by an extremely friendly policewoman who pointed out that there was a parade in progress and that we could not go any further.
Now you may ask, why would there be a parade going on in Bushmills at 9PM on a Wednesday night, but you would only be showing your ignorance. Bushmills is in Northern Ireland and this is what they call marching season, and there are politically oriented parades all the time. So we had to park the car a half mile from the restaurant and walk, crossing between the bands, to get out dinner. So we ended up not getting there until almost 11. A very long day.
Taking a break now. Time to plan tomorrow's drive.
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