49 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Day 11: Dublin (IE) to Holyhead (UK)'
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date: 2013-06-18T15:00:46+02:00
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Tags: []
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Categories: []
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---
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## Dubbin' in Dublin
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Our last day on the Irish isle was planned to be spent in Dublin. However, since we missed Newgrange yesterday, we'll try that again today.
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Sure, it means paying twice for all those toll roads and more driving around but what is a roadtrip if you're not driving?
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We get up around 9:00 and make our way down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Turns out, it's not as good as we had hoped so after
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quickly stuffing down some bacon and eggs we check out and jump in the car. Newgrange isn't very far away so about 45 minutes later we
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arrive at the parking lot. Turns out, there's two sights to be seen here, we're assured (by the sales lady, surely she has no interest in
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upsales!) that Knowth is at least equally as interesting as Newgrange. We agree ("we zijn hier nou toch"), so we get tickets for both: we're
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on the 10:45 Newgrange tour and the 12:45 Knowth tour.
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Newgrange is a man-made construction measuring about 75 meters in diameter, consisting of bigger and smaller rocks, covered with dirt and
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grass. Our tour guide Gerry explains there's a 20 meter tunnel on the inside that aligns perfectly with the winter solstice sunrise. At the
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end of the tunnel the roof is about 6 meters above us, made up from nothing but rocks covered by a layer of dirt. Some pretty cool
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construction work went into this thing, especially considering it's age: more than 5000 years old (predating the pyramids of Gizeh by some
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400 years).
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After Newgrange we head back to the visitor centre for some lunch, to prepare for the Knowth tour. There we find another one of these tombs,
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almost as big as Newgrange, surrounded by many smaller "satellite" tombs. Frances takes us around the site and explains what we now know
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about the history of these mounds. Knowth, it turns out, has been 'recycled' quite often since the first farmers constructed the site five
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thousand years ago. Farmers and kings built houses on the mound, but it's still very well preserved.
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At about 14:00, we are back in the car and on our way to Dublin again. The plan now is to visit Guinness brewery in the middle of the city.
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Interestingly enough, the process of brewing beer is quite similar to that of distilling whisky. Simply replace the distilling with adding
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hops and you're (roughly) there. Other than that, there's barley, grist, wash, wort, fermentation, casks and all that good stuff. We end the
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(self guided) tour of the Guinness storehouse at the 7th level giving us a great view over all of Dublin, giving us a good view of some of
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the things we've seen last night (Lansdowne stadium (or Aveva, as it's now called), the Spire, etc). Of course, there's the all important
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beer at one of the bars. Since you get a complimentary beer with your entry ticket, we can't leave the storehouse before Pim downs two pints
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of stout.
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After the Guinness experience, we have to start thinking about getting back to Great Britain. Our Stena Line ferry leaves the Dublin port at
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21:15 and we still have to eat. We park the car somewhere in central Dublin and continue on foot in search of feeding grounds. We find a
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nice little restaurant in the basement of The Merrion hotel where we have a pretty good rib-eye. There's still a little time left, so we
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walk around the shopping streets of Dublin for a bit before making our way to the port.
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We get there easy enough and without much hassle queue up for the boat. The boat trip is rather uneventful, save for a very pretty sunset
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(or, two pretty sunsets). It lasts quite a bit longer than the trip from CAIRNRYANNNNNNnnnyyyYYAH! to Belfast and we arrive at Holyhead in
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Wales just before one o'clock. Fortunately, the Travelodge we booked is basically next to the dock and without much further ado, we fall
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asleep.
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**Posted by Paul de Weerd at 10:30 PM**
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