Naurwen's Journey

Knowth While Newgrange is the main site people want to visit in the Boyne Valley area, Knowth is the second one and just as interesting, though different... It consists of one huge site and several smaller ones such as the one in this picture, plus some more... let's call them *features*... :)	The Sun Stones White Quartzite as the dictionary tells me... in Irish (and I don't remember the words *sigh*), translated, it's called *Sun-Stone*. Those stones were either placed as a path around the major big site OR they were its wall - one doesn't know. Knowth's stones were put up as a path, while Newgrange's were re-built into its wall, so you can see both solutions nowadays...
The big site of Knowth From afar... comparing with those two visitors you can see how large it is!	Boyne River ... which flows through the Boyne Valley... and is connected to the Goddess Boann... whose home Newgrange is... :)
The triple spiral of Newgrange The most famous ornament of all those sites... and also the symbol of the Brú na Boinne Centre which is the entrance to visiting these two sites. It's one of my favourite ornaments.	The entrance to Newgrange Here you can see the entrance stone which I find really amazing and beautiful... as well as the entrance itself AND the *window* above which lets the sun come in on the days of and around the Winter Solstice. The memories of last year when we were there!!!! *aw*
An ornamented stone of Newgrange It's difficult to photograph those as the ornaments are actually best seen when the stone's wet. Speaking from experience. LOL. This one is somewhere at the back of Newgrange.	Newgrange and the Sky... No, it wasn't about to rain like mad, we had nice weather when we were there. The sky just decided to put up a dramatic show for this photo. :D
Newgrange from afar ... again so you can see how big it is. The *things* on the right are *huge* standing stones and the tiny little spot between them and Newgrange is a human (? well, you never know, do you? LOL).

Nowadays when we're in Ireland, staying in a cottage somewhere we're never really out of civilization, but let's just say making holidays this way is a bit on the less touristic side. Now... if you visit a place like Newgrange you sort of have to mentally prepare yourself to get into the *flood of tourists*, good and bad.
So... while I LOVE these sites, I visit them over and over again, on the other hand you have no chance to spend some quality time there. You visit them and you've about 40 minutes to stay at each site - includes a guided tour where you're in a group. You're always given a tiny bit of time to explore for yourself, but yeah... it's not the same.
That's why I treasure visiting lesser known sites such as Loughcrew, Drombeg, Carrowmore, Knocknarea, etc.
And on Tara many tourists get bored as for them there's *not enough to see* and even if they stroll a bit further you can still escape them by just... walking even further away. LOL

We went to Knowth and Newgrange in the Boyne Valley together with my penpal Evelyn who's Irish and who I met up with. Yey! :D
And we were lucky not to be in too bad tourist groups. Sometimes some are really awful but there most people were nice and actually interested which is always a plus. We also had very good guides.

It was strange standing inside Newgrange again - it brought back memories of having been there for the Winter Solstice last year. THE memories. You remember mum had won us 2 places to spend the morning inside Newgrange to welcome the Sun? I just couldn't help and grinned like a looney while we were inside Newgrange now again. LOL

Later that evening we also visited Tara - and spent some real quality time there. :) Quality time for pagans and witches that is. :)
I can highly recommend going there in the very late afternoon or evening.
Maybe not on Samhain. I'm not sure what's going on there in the late hours. ;)

Here's a link to a FAB webpage:
http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/

Telling about Newgrange, Knowth and all the other Irish sites!
Questions? Ask. :)

And here goes my first offical entry... and some mainly fun photos:

We had a good journey, good flight, everything went really well. Got our car super-fast, almost didn't find it as now you have to pick up the rental cars in a parking building near the airport and let's just say it's kind of hidden. We had a silver Nissan Micra which worked a treat - and we spotted this type of car over and over again all over Ireland. Must be a favourite? It looks smaller on the outside, but actually a lot fits in. Our luggage certainly did. :)

We drove to the first house we had rented... and got SO LOST!
You really need a navigator there. Once you know your way you're just fine, but searching the house for the first time... no chance.
The lady who owns it knew we were on the way and called me to ask if we were nearby and I was like yeah, in the village you told me NOT to go to. LOL. We really ended up there. So she came by car to pick us up. I guess she found it just as hilarious. :D
Some tea was awaiting us... and a really large but cosy and lovely house. I'd take that one anytime! Plus big spacious gardens and all *on your own*. No neighbours directly nearby yet you're not really far away from the next village (...) or main road. Handy!

In the morning, Sunday, we discovered we had a couple of cats to adopt.
The lady had warned us there were cats, wild-ish ones that her husband actually fed and looked after a bit. Figured out there were 3 fluffy white cats, one without a tail, one big-ish one and then a slender one. All of them too shy to be touched but nosy enough to peer into the kitchen, especially since there was a small bowl for them by the kitchen door anyway.
So... Nurdhegilwen's familiar with adopting-cats-for-a-week-in-Ireland - we did just that. LOL.
Some while later I discovered 2 kitten in the shed behind the house - one white and one - BLACK!!! :D SO cute. Unfortunately I've no photos of them as they were well hidden and the slender cat which I soon called *mum* was always guarding them, but I saw them play a couple of times. AW!
The big cat seemed to be the guardian of the house as he mostly slept by the kitchen door and usually was the first one to visit us as soon as someone started strolling around the house in the morning. >^.^<

Here go pics:

1st week - 1st house: My Bed I had to take a photo of it because it just looked rather nice... :) AND it was super-comfy! :D *misses it*	*our* Cats How many do you spot? :D
Close up Meow They were too shy to be touched, but still adorable and one of them which I think was a male kept on guarding our house. :)	Narnia in the Garden? Well... you never know, right? :D
Our Car, our Bear, our Tiger... LOL, the bear's mum's (yes, it's a teddybear dressed up as a gingerbread-man LOL), the tiger's mine. They were posing during the whole holiday. Here they're showing off our lovely (rented) silver (no, not a Volvo, sorry) Nissan Micra. :D	Boots! We had to buy some definitely-waterproof boots for the falconry lesson, so here they are... :) In the end we had to leave them in Ireland. They were really heavy and also big, no space in our luggage... but they should have a good home by now - we gave them to the lady who owns the 2nd house we rented and she found them lovely. :)
THE Restaurant of Navan You love Indian Food? You are in Ireland? Preferably near Navan? You'd like to visit a drool-icious restaurant? Here it is!!! *waves @ Nicole!!!*	Synchro Swans You won't believe when I say that I actually WAITED for them to do something else than scratch their tums for ages... both at the same time... in the end I gave up and took THIS photo instead. :)
Mini-Birdie Who spots the Robin? :D	Natural Beauty This one was really unusual - I've definitely not seen any such flower before.

Sunday was a tiny drama-day as Ed discovered one of the car's tires was losing air. I called the lady asking if she knew where we best could get that fixed and well, she came over along with her son who grabbed the tire and went off in search for *someone to fix it on a Sunday*. Bless them for their help!!!
In the meanwhile we were told to *go somewhere and enjoy the day* so we went to the next town to do some food shopping and also to visit a small local market that sold yummy homemade jams, scones, cheese, veggies and... small packs of scrabooking crafty things. They were thrown in between the scones. LOL.
So it was a bit of a lazy shopping Sunday *only* but way ok for us as all three of us were really tired after tough times at work and then travel-Saturday...

Arrived back at the house and got our tire back immediately, fixed by whoever for 7 Euro only. Woooooooooooh! :D
Lucky!!!

Well, and my next entries will be more adventurous, I promise. ;)

Um, can anyone tell me why LJ leaves such a huge empty space between my texts BEFORE the pics? In EVERY post??? :(