Crowne Plaza Dundalk

... inside. The construction was designed so that a beam of sunlight would shine into the chamber and onto the remains on the winter solstice.

After the tour, we drove to the coast and went to a beach of the Irish Sea. The beach was very wide--the water was many yards out. The tide must come in over a great distance, because the sand was seeping water and had remnants of a lot of sea life. There was an ...

... the plan so far:

Date: 07/01/2010

Location: Buenos Aires

Details: Catch the night bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn (PM). Dep 15:00, Arr 09:30. £105

Date: 08/01/2010

Location: Puerto Madryn

Details: Get off night bus from BA at 09:30. Spend the day in PM, do an excursion, stay the night

Date: 09/01/2010

Location: Puerto Madryn
Mullavilly, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom conorandalicia

... while John read and I blogged. Then we decided we needed a change of pace for dinner and went to a little Italian restaurant by the river. We both had pasta dishes and washed it down with glasses of the house red. It was delicious, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Before we left, we spoke with a couple and their daughter who were sitting next to us. They LOVE the States, and go over as often as they can. Their daughter would like to go to college there ...

... floors. We walked around for about an hour, then left Carrickfergus.

Our next stop was Downpatrick, which meant driving around the busy city of Belfast. We were happy to escape the city and get on less crowded roads. When we got to Downpatrick, we went straight to Down Cathedral which is the burial site of Sts. Patrick, Bridgid, and Columbkill. We found St. Patrick’s stone, but most believe he and the others are buried beneath the church. The church was lovely, and it is ...

A quick trip along the coast before returning to the hotel.

A nice little coastline.

I did get caught in a police roadblock. Luckily, I have a UK license. Made it a breeze to get through without many questions. Curious to find out what they were looking for.

... br>
One of the Irish Round Towers is here as well. These were used as lookouts as well as refuges. The door is usually 12-20 ft up and was accessed by ladder. The first floor inside also had a ladder access on the inside. After going in, the ladders were pulled up.

Newgrange was built around 3200 BC and is older than the Great Pyramid in Egypt. It also is aligned with the winter solstice so the sun lights up the tomb. There are decorated stones around the perimeter and inside the tomb.
The internal chamber is roughly 20 feet tall.

... allez nous perdre dans les sentier de Ravensdale histoire de profiter du soleil. Je suis presentement chez Kate a Dundalk au programme demain: Newgrange http://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm a suivre.. ----- We left Dublin since a couple of days now! We staid a few days in Blackrock at Garry's and Tonie's place two good friend of Mike ...

... in our lifetimes? James is one-up on us forever in that category I'm betting. Following the tour, there was (of course) a large gallery of Waterford pieces for sale and that ended up being a bad thing for some of the men in the group. But we lived through it. An hour later, we found ourselves in downtown Kilkenny, north of Waterford, where we took in Kilkenny Castle. We got a lot of history from our informative guide about the grounds, which date back to the 13th ...

... 300 year old head. I instead thought that it was a disturbing reminder of the sacrifices that people sometimes have to make in defense of what they believe. I hope that seeing it will cause you to reflect on the prejudices that led this man to his death.

If you wish to see the head of St. Oliver Plunkett, click here.

After visiting the church and seeing the relics, we went down the street to the Swan House. According to Lonely Planet, the Swan House has ...