Day 13: Wednesday (6/19/2013)

Got up super early, checked out, and started driving south.  We wanted to get to Bru Na Boinne early to beat the tour bus onslaught.  On the way out, we couldn't help but notice the rush-hour traffic into Belfast--crazy!

We got to Bru Na Boine around 9:15am, which meant that we were on the first tour bus to Howth at 9:45.  While we waited, we had a great breakfast in their tea room.

Satellite tombs at Knowth.

Bru Na Boinne is essentially a visitor center (with great exhibits) combined with a bus hub for the two neolithic passage graves open for public viewing: Knowth and Newgrange.  This is a must-see sight.

We toured Knowth first, followed by Newgrange.  These sites are well documented, so I won't go into detail on whats there.  What I will say, however, is that Knowth was by far the more interesting tour of the two.  Newgrange gets all the love because you can actually go inside the tomb (at Knowth you can't), but Knowth has far more interesting neolithic art.  The guide likely also had something to do with it--our guide in the morning at Knowth was fantastic.  If you only have time to tour one tomb at Bru Na Boinne, I would recommend you go for Knowth.

Newgrange.

One more note about Bru Na Boinne: you MUST get here early.  Tours are first-come, first-serve, and there are a very limited number of them.  If you want to see this site--and you should, it is amazing--plan ahead!

The Stone of Fal.

After Bru Na Boinne, I really wanted to see the Hill of Tara, and specifically, the Stone of Fal.  This turned out to be a challenge--we got completely lost looking for the hill of Tara.  After asking for directions twice (gas station, old man in a small town in the woods), we made it--and I finally got to touch the Stone of Fal.

From there, we backtracked and saw the site of the Battle of Boyne.  This was definitely worth seeing.  The visitor center alone is worth the trip--the battle is explained excellently (first time I've seen a laser show used effectively to explain battle maneuvers) and the grounds are immaculate.  This is a perfect place for a picnic on a warm day.  It's quite close to Bru Na Boinne, but we didn't see a single tour bus.

It was getting late, so we wrapped up our visit to the Boyne valley, and headed to the Dublin airport to drop our car, and caught a taxi to our hotel, the Morrison.

The Morrison is basically the Virgin America of hotels--it's a recently remodeled hotel that is trying very hard to be trendy.  To this end the rooms are hip and done up in "modern" purple highlights.

A late dinner was at Musashi, a nearby Japanese place just outside of Temple Bar district.  Pretty good--see my review here.

We were bushed from a long day, so after wandering through Temple Bar, we packed it in for the night.