Awesome Day Trip Sunday!! (8-6 PM!)

       Sunday was our big trip that my Mom had planned for us. We were going to be going on a trip from 8 AM until 6 PM on a bus that would bring us to different cool things like castles and things like that. We woke up on Sunday and we walked down to the meeting point at 7:30 AM. We got there and got on the bus, it was a good sized bus, and we were off on our journey. 

     We drove 24 miles to our first stop which was the Hill of Tara. The Hill of Tara contains ancient monuments and a hill where they used to do sacred rituals. The hill had a huge circle around it made by the grass being raised off of the ground. Then there were more circles inside of the big one. Here is what the Hill of Tara looks like from a birds eye perspective. 

     The ground was curvy because of the 2 circles you see in the middle of the picture that are made by raised ground and ground indented below the real ground, making like waves in the ground when you walk over them.

       After the Hill of Tara, we drove 5 miles to Bective Abbey, which is like a place where religious people would have ceremonies and work, and it is all in ruins now, but it was awesome to look at here are some pictures of it. 

The Abbey was very cool, and we found a way to get onto the 2nd floor of the abbey even though all of the other places were gated off. It was really cool to explore it. We only had like 15 minutes to spend at the Abbey and next we drove about 10 minutes to Trim Castle. Trim Castle is Irelands largest Anglo-Norman Castle. It was very large, and from the outside you could see the darkness on the side of the castle from where the moat used to be. Our guide said the moat was actually a split river made to go around the castle, so the water kept moving so they could actually dump their waste in the moat, because it was a river. 

Outside of Trim Castle. you can see the dark part on the wall that is where the moat used to be. 

On the inside of the walls, we explored and found a ton of cool things to climb. 

Me and Levi inside of the castle. 

After visiting Trim Castle, we drove 30 miles to Loughcrew Megalithic Centre which was a place we were going to see the Cairns of Loughcrew. The 'Cairns' are piles of stones that are landmarks or built for memorials. This is the Google definition:

cairn

kɛːn/

noun

plural noun: cairns

1. 1.

   a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, typically on a hilltop or skyline.

    After our 30 miles of driving we finally arrived at the place. We walked into a place called  "Nelly's Kitchen" which was a small restaurant that was near the hill that we were about to climb. It was not on Google Maps, so I was able to put it on Google Maps and google approved it and put it on Google Maps so now if you search "Nelly's Kitchen" in google, and then click on maps, it will show you "Nelly's Kitchen" that is right next to the  Loughcrew Cairns if you zoom out a bit. We ordered lunch at Nelly's Kitchen and then we went to go on our walk up the hill. Me and Levi each ordered the vegetable soup that was named the Witches Broth or something like that.

Here is my Mom in front of the signs that point to where the 'Cairns' are, and in front of the Loughcrew Gardens sign with Oma. 

After we ordered our lunch we started to climb the hill to get to the top it to see the Cairn. The hill was pretty big, and windy at the top. Here is us at the bottom of the hill and then at the top of the hill. 

Us and the hill that we were about to climb.

At the top of the hill the view was amazing! You could see a ton of the County's of Ireland!

      

Once we got to the top, then we could see the pile of rocks, and it was very big. We could also see all around us, the County's of Ireland. We walked to the Cairn to check it out. It was very windy at the top and my hair was blowing everywhere. 

Us arriving at the Cairn.

Levi standing on top of the enormous Cairn. 

View from the top of the Cairn. 

Me and Levi got to climb on top of the Cairn, and it was very windy. You could also go inside of the Cairn when our guide unlocked the gate, and you could see the very old engravings in the stone. It was amazing!

Sitting on the Cairn about to go inside. 

Inside the Cairn and seeing the old engravings on the stone. 

We learned that 3 days out of each year the sun will rise and illuminate the inside of the room under the Cairn. All other days it is dark inside of the Cairn because there is no sun roof. We had to use a flashlight to take the above pictures in the cave of the inscriptions on the rocks. It was very cool to climb the Cairn.

We started our walk down the hill. Some parts of the hill are muddy though. Levi was running down the hill and yelled at me and said "Watch this" as he was going to attempt to jump over a little crevice of mud in the ground. He jumped but then he tilted and landed in the mud straight on his back. It was so funny to watch and I wish that I could have got it on camera.



After we were done seeing the Cairn and climbing the hill, we had our lunch, and the soup was very good. It was not windy in Nelly's Kitchen which was also good. I got a scone for dessert. After we had soup, we had a 1 hour bus ride to our next destination which were the ruins of Monasterboice which was an early christian settlement. It was basically a cemetery with 2 huge Celtic crosses and a huge pillar. The 2 huge crosses there 5 meters high.

The enormous Celtic cross. 

The Cemetary

The cemetery was awesome to visit and fun to walk around. The giant crosses were awesome and Levi was able to get in this little castle pillar thing. Then we headed to our last destination for the day which was in Drogheda.  Drogheda is one of the oldest towns in Ireland. We were told a story of a guy who was in charge of everything in a castle, and when he got there he sentenced everyone to death and did other bad things, and ordered to destroy the castle to build another one, but he let this one gate stand because it was so cool or because he wanted it to be preserved. This is what the gate that he let stand looks like.

This gate is right in the middle of Drogheda and cars can go under it. It is part of the town now its really cool!

That gate is called St. Laurence Gate. We also went to St. Peters church, and we saw the head of St. Oliver Plunkett. The church contains the national shrine of St. Oliver Plunkett and his head is there and you can go see it. Here is what the church looks like.


It was very pretty inside. We all walked back to the bus and then headed back to Dublin. We got dropped off and started to walk home. On the walk back to our house we tried to think of where a good place would be to eat out. We ended up going to this place right next to our house called Chez Max. It is right by the Tesco that we always go to by Fitzwilliam Square. Chez Max was a French restaurant and it had a lot of fancy things to eat. Me and Levi got the sirloin steak. It came with french fries and a little salad on the side. The steak was amazing with the Pepper sauce that it came with.

For desert, Levi and I got the Strawberry Tart and it was amazing! Here is a picture of it!



After finishing dinner at Chez Max, we finally went home and went to school Monday.



-March 13, 2017