Day 2 - Newgrange / Hill of Tara

Today we took the Mary Gibbons Newgrange and Hill of Tara tour (link).

We were picked up by the tour bus at Berkeley Court hotel at 1:45AM PST (9:45AM Ireland time).

The whole day was great and I took many pictures at the Hill of Tara (wikipedia), the outside of Newgrange (wikipedia), and the surrounding countryside of both. We were not allowed to take pictures inside Newgrange.

Dinner
This night we had dinner at a restaurant called Milano (review) in Dublin (38 Dawson Street Dublin 2).
Kristin ate Fungotto, an appetizer (or 'starter' in local parlance)
For my dinner, I ate a very tasty Tortellini.

My beer was Birra Peroni Gran Riserva (link), Birra Doppio Malto Chiara - very good! This was the high octane version of this beer. They had a "normal" proof version, and a "near bear" version, but I did not try either. I will definitely look for this beer in the states.

Pub
The Fodor's (link) guide suggested several pubs. One which sounded very interesting was called Kehoe's (or John Kehoe) (link to review). The book stated that the upstairs is basically John's living room, which he happily shares with patrons who want to bring their drinks upstairs.

As a bonus, they were right around the corner from the restaurant we ate at. Unfortunately, however, they were ludicrously crowded! The patrons spilled out not only onto the sidewalk, but into the street. Cars had a trouble driving by. Seeing no easy way in to get a drink without elbowing our way forcefully, we wandered around a bit.

Our waiter from Milano's had two suggestions, but both were also overly crowded (although not quite as obscenely crowded as Kehoe's living room). We then walked to a pub called O'neill's (link), and I tried a Bulmer's vintage cider (link). I doubt I will drink this again, it was too sweet!

After that, we headed to another pub, who's name I do not recall, for a Guinness and some interesting conversation (locally known as Craic (wikipedia)) with the bartender. He very patiently and happily answered our newbie-to-Ireland type questions.

[Pictures of Hill of Tara tour] [Pictures of Newgrange tour] [Pictures of Scenery] [All Ireland photos]