We are on our way south today. Down the M4 it is only 110 miles to our next hotel but that is not the way we went. We headed down a peninsula south and east of Belfast. It was pretty farm country along the water. At the end we needed to take a small ferry to continue down the east coast.

Our first stop was a search for some high crosses. (Celtic crosses) The largest two in Ireland are at Monasterboice. It took some back road searching to find the place. It was located out in some farm country. It is on the site of a 5^th century monastery. There are three large crosses here. The crosses date to the 10^th century. It is also a cemetery.

We continued down the coast line. Our next stop was at Newgrange. It is another World Heritage Site. It is an Irish passage tomb. One of the structures is a large circular stone structure, 80 meters across and contains 200,000 tons of stone. It was built about 3200 BC and the area was populated from then to about 1000 BC. It was built about the same era as Stonehenge and the pyramids. It is amazing how long ago people lived here and that they can learn about their civilizations.

We went on to our hotel. This is a very nice 4 star (the highest rating her) hotel and spa. We got here early enough to enjoy it too. Tomorrow we go to Dublin.