Day 13 - Trim & Newgrange, Co. Meath

Flew across Ireland yesterday on the new Motorway - very quick (can make Galway to Dublin in 1.45 hours vs 3-4, but missed all the small villages on the way.  More than made up for that by staying an extra day in the village of Trim.  It is just the best place!  The castle at Trim was the one used by Mel Gibson during the filming of Braveheart (forget that the movie was about the Scots independence fight from the English), the village centre is a kick - so much fun!  Dropped the laundry off at the local "Laundry Basket" at 11am, and it was delivered to our B&B (for free) while Diane and I were absorbing volumes of information about Newgrange & Knowth located in the Boyne Valley, Co. Meath (about 45 min north of Dublin).

Newgrange is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (kind of like an Olympic Gold medal on steroids for heritage places) and is mind-blowing - seriously.  It is a passage grave.  Picture a one acre mound of earth with a 3x5' opening of stone slabs.  Just above that is a 'window', about 3x4'.  Proceed down a passage that at times is only shoulder-width wide due to standing stones that are 1-10 tons in weight into a central chamber with three side chambers (essentially a cross).  At dawn on December 21st, the winter solstice, a beam of sunlight shoots down the passage and lights the burial chamber.  At all other times, the place is totally devoid of any light.  I tell you, walking down that passage was like being in an Indiana Jones movie, except this was the real deal.  Newgrange predates the pyramids by 500 years (2500BC) as well as Stonehenge.  This was one seriously interesting tour.  We just walked in a water-tight passage grave that was over 5000 years old.  5000. Years. Old.

Returning to our B&B in Trim, contemplating that the usual home built in the US might last 250 years tops, received a hot cup of coffee from our hostess Anne Doyle, then spent the next three hours with Diane and her husband at their kitchen table talking about immigration into US and Ireland, college & careers for our kids, aging bodies, politics, and the differences in driving in Ireland and the US, plus many, many more topics all over the board.  What a great time - amazing that although we live half a world apart, there are so many similarities between Irish and American families.  Truly the Irish go above and beyond when trying to show hospitality to the guests of their country.  When asked about the recent visits of Queen Elizabeth and President Obama to Ireland, there was a definite sense of pride that it had gone off so well for the world to see, which then reflected positively on the country as a whole.  Who would have thought coffee at a kitchen table would have been one of the highlights of our trip in this country?

Our suitcases have been emptied and repacked in prep for leaving Ireland for Sweden.  Tomorrow, we'll spend the day/night back in Dublin, then off to the airport on Monday.  All we have left to do is enjoy our last day in Ireland and pay the euros we owe for our tolls on the M50.  What a drag - that money could have been spent more appropriately on a pint of the dark stuff!