After our stay in Northern Ireland, it was time to move back into the Republic of Ireland. So we drove our motorhome Vtee, south toward Dublin. Our first stop was just outside Dublin at the UNESCO World Heritage site at Brú na Bóinne.
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| Leigh at Newgrange Neolithic burial chamber (UNESCO), Brú na Bóinne, Ireland |
The site consists of a number of Neolithic tomb chambers, standing stones and prehistoric enclosures, some dating from as early as 35th century BC.
Visits are by organised tour only, and we managed to get one to the Newgrange site, which has the most amazing ancient burial chamber that predates the Egyptian pyramids.
We were able to go inside the burial chamber and were amazed at how sophisticated it is in its construction. It is built of huge rocks, all placed at a slight angle to each other to make a beehive shape, and done without mortar or any other material to hold it together. It is in great condition given its age, and it is completely weatherproof.
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| Carved stone and entry to the burial chamber at Newgrange (UNESCO) |
It has a passage where you enter, and a part of this allows, at certain times of the year, the sun’s light to shine into the back of the chamber to touch the grave (no photos allowed). It was an incredible place to visit, despite the persistent rain!
Then we trucked on into Dublin, managing to briefly get, to our dismay, onto a toll road. Our own fault as our GPS told us to go off onto a minor road, and we ignored it. Clearly, we should not have!
Despite that, we arrived at our campground, the Carmac Valley Camping and Caravan site, ready to enjoy Dublin over the next few days.
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| Marg in front of the Manor House wedding venue |
While there, we attended the wedding of our friends Cath and Chrissie at the Manor House, a beautiful venue just south of our camp and an easy drive.
We had arranged to park Vtee in the Manor House car park, so we could stay there on the night of the wedding. There was no way we were going to drive back to camp after an Irish wedding!
The wedding was a fabulous affair set outside in lovely gardens with Cath and Chrissie looking gorgeous. The weather was perfect, despite dire warnings on the weather app!
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Cath, Marg, Chrissie, Leigh |
We were part of a small contingent joining Cath’s family and other friends from New Zealand, and we got to meet a lot of lovely Irish people.
The next day we went back to our campground and settled in for the rest of our Dublin stay. That evening we caught a taxi to Cath and Chrissie’s post-wedding BBQ and saw a bit of the city on the way.
We passed through lots of streets full of Georgian style row-houses, some in better condition than others.
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| Row houses in Dublin |
They are all joined together, with several stories including a level that is below the street. They all look the same and apparently people paint their doors a distinctive colour to distinguish their home from others.
The next morning, we caught a bus from outside the campground, into the middle of Dublin city.
Dublin is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Ireland (population around 1.1 mill) and it dates back to 988.
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| The River Liffey, Dublin |
It’s situated at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is divided into areas such as the Georgian districts, Temple Bar district, Cornmarket, historic centre and others. We tried to get around the lot, with a main focus on the historic parts.
We visited many places as we walked around this vibrant city. We particularly liked the Christ Church Cathedral, a huge and impressive medieval structure, and St Patrick’s Cathedral, the largest church in Ireland. St Patrick’s dates back to 1191.
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| St Audoen's Parish Church |
About the same age as St Patrick’s, but much smaller is the lovely St Audoen’s Parish Church. It sits beside the old town walls in a lovely garden. We were quite taken with its age, compact and attractive architecture, and pretty location.
Dublin Castle looked interesting from the outside, but we didn't go right through the building as there were some renovations going on.
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| Parliament Square, Trinity College Dublin |
We saw many beautiful historic buildings in Dublin, all proclaiming a rich and varied heritage.
We also saw lots of pubs that seemed to be well maintained and attractive to look at. Many of the best are in the Temple Bar district.
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| Pub in Temple Bar area |
Later on we wandered into other districts, seeing beautiful parks, a smart tram system, and modern and attractive buildings. Dublin is a very lovely city.
Heading back to our bus stop later, we found Moore Street Market which had heaps of fruit and vegetable stalls operating. We bought a huge tub of blueberries there as it was the end of the day and they were selling fruit cheaply.
We really liked Dublin and found the city centre quite compact and easy to walk. We enjoyed wandering around and viewing the huge range of different buildings, some big some small, some old some new.
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| Examples of Dublin architecture |
This city is right up there with some of the best, such as Melbourne, Sydney, New York etc.
Moving on, our next mission was to prepare for a very early start the next day. We had to get to the dock area to catch a ferry back to Wales.
Fortunately, it was a Sunday and very early. This meant we had no difficulties with traffic, and were able to navigate Dublin’s streets in our big motorhome without too much trouble. We could also avoid the motorway and its tolls.
We arrived in plenty of time, and were even early enough to eat our breakfast in Vtee before boarding.
The ferry ride was an easy and uneventful trip back across the Irish Sea, this time to Holyhead in Northern Wales for the next part of our trip.
This is part of a bigger blog on our travels around England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The first blog is called "Off to do the UK in a motorhome".