Day 3 of MasterTrip Driving Tour

On Day 3, the driving part of this driving tour started. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. First, the Hertz car rental is a cab ride away from downtown Dublin, and the line to rent a car is ridiculously long. But its the driving on the left side of the street that's the really scary part. Fortunately, my husband is a genius not only at driving on the wrong side of the street/highway/superhighway (I dare not say freeway), but he is also a genius at finding our way around the country using a Michelin map. While a GPS compass was offered to us at Hertz (for a price), which I for one would have readily accepted, he preferred the puzzle-solving challenge of following a map. And the Michelin map of Ireland was a pretty good one to follow.

We decided to take in the northern Boyne Valley sites of Trim, Tara, and Newgrange on Day 3, and since they aren't too far from Dublin, we were able to stay again at the Shelbourne. Trim is a large old castle that was the site of Mel Gibson's Braveheart, and made for some good photography. Onto the nearby Hill of Tara, an ancient Celtic site of man-made rounded hills which was the royal seat till the 11th century. Then on to the main event of the day, the prehistoric tombs of Newgrange. Arriving there at around 5pm, we were informed that if you don't get there by 9am, you may not get in, so we returned to Dublin, planning to get an early start and arrive by 9am the next day.