The Boyne River Valley

The Collon House is amazing.  Here's a link
 Pictures can't do it justice.  These two guys bought this property 20 years ago, spent 10 years rehabilitating it and and purchased every authentic period item in the home.  And the results are exquisite.  I took a tour of the property last night without my camera but will shoot some more pictures today.  There are room after room of absolutely perfect, Architectural Digest quality rooms that go on forever.  Amazing.  Here are a few more photos

The view out of our sitting room window into the courtyard.

What we see under our canopy.....like sleeping under the clouds!

Another sitting room

Another dining room with baby grand

The glass entry in the foreground comes off the courtyard and into a foyer with a small TV room.  The stairway leads to our room and two other bedrooms and huge bath.  Each room is en suite.

The Grand Stairway in the other house across the courtyard.  Built in 1740

ALL the oil paintings in the house, and there are hundreds, are originals!

 Anyway.............We finally left the house after another delicious Irish breakfast in a charming and elegant dining room and headed out to visit Newgrange.  Along all the small roads in Ireland and Scotland there are thousand of wild blackberry vines.  And they are so sweet and yummy.  Gordon and I stopped to munch a few or, ok, 50!

You can't make reservations at Newgrange you have to show up and get a time to take the tour.  Our tour is almost 2 hours from now so we decided to go see the sight of the Battle of the Boyne.   The great, start-it-all war in 1690 between the Catholics and the Protestants involving King William III, his father-in-law King James II and even King Louis XVI!  It was the largest battle ever fought on Irish soil The couple we are now spending the day with from our B&B, Jane and Ed, are from New York and live in Connecticut and we all agreed that visiting this hallowed ground was like visiting the battleground in Gettysburg.  Solemn, moving.  These cannons are so well preserved.  They were used in the battle.

The walled garden at Oldbridge Estate

The Oldbridge Estate

Looking toward the fields of battle and the River Boyne.

 So after our battleground visit it was time to head back to Newgrange. We are only allowed to take external pictures here.  Newgrange was built 5,000 years ago and pre-date the Egyption pyramids by 500 years and Stonehenge by 1,000 years.  The Boyne Valley has three huge sights like this one and many "satellite" mounds as well.  There are all passage  tombs that consist of a burial chamber reached by a long straight passage alined to various seasons.  This one is alined to the winter solstice.  During that time the passageway is illuminated for 17 minutes each year.  All the rock used to construct these mounds is not native to the area and has been brought up the river from miles away.

Exterior approach to Newgrange or in Gaelic, Bru' na Bo'inne

View down the valley just past the standing rocks.  We've lost our sunshine and a slight breeze has picked up.

The entry.  You can see two openings.  The top opening above the flat roof is the light opening to the winter solstice.  Under that roof is the actual passagway.  You have to stoop down and walk kinda sideways to get through.

This carved stone is controversial as to what it means.  Our guide said it is the most photographed stone in the world. Don't know about that but here's one more picture!

 When we left Newgrange we drove over to Monasterboice to view a 6th century tower and crosses that are the only remain of this monastic site.

We enter the grounds along this lovely avenue of trees and old rock wall.

The tower behind the cemetary.

It's tall.  The monks would hide in the tower when being attacked by the Vikings!

This is the Muireadach's Cross, named after a former abbot and is supposedly the finest example of its kind in the country.

It is elaborately carved dipicting a variety of scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

The ruins of a 9th Century church.

This is the North Cross

 By the time we finished here it was 4:00 pm and we were hungry and tired.  Back at  the Collon House we were offered a pot of hot tea and a piece of cherry pound cake...one of these guys is a baker...and we sat in Michael's lovely kitchen for another visit. Then up to our "suite" to load my pictures and relax a while.  Shortly later Ed and Jane came back.  They hadn't seen our rooms and came up for the tour and relaxed in  our sitting room with us sipping wine and talking for hours.  In fact, we missed our dinner reservation!  But Michael pulled some strings and Gordon and I went out for comfort food, roast chicken stuffed with sausage and mashed potatoes and sauteed greens.  Yummy.

Today we say goodbye to our friends and Ireland and head to Dublin to catch the ferry over to Wales.  Mixed feelings about leaving Ireland.  The people are super warm and friendly, the sights were all visually stunning and well kept and the food has been terrific!