Ireland Getaway 2014- Post 10- Driving to Dublin from Derry

The day we left Derry was unfortunately also the day my husband's cold was at its worst. If we had been at home he would have been in bed all day- it was so awful! I felt bad but we had to get moving, and unfortunately for both of us I have never learned to drive a stick shift. (annnnnd yes, I've heard a million times how I should learn, and what would I do in an emergency? etc...) So that meant that my poor, sick husband had to drive all the way from Derry to Dublin, with a few stops on the way. What. a. trooper.

We didn't have time for many detours, so most of what we saw was from the car. Lucky for me, we got stopped in road construction at a beautiful, picturesque spot that I would not have gotten good photos of if we hadn't been forced to stop.

I was most excited because we were going to be going through County Monaghan, the county that my mother's Irish ancestors came from. I knew that we weren't going to have enough time to detour to the village of Creevagh that my ancestors are from so I tried to take in as much of the area as possible from the car. It was a lovely drive.

this picture with the house in ruins is oddly grayed out. I didn't change anything from the original.

I didn't take as many pictures as I woud have liked, I was distracted by navigating. I definitely missed some opportunities for good photos of villages and the River Boyne.  

The one detour we did make was to go to Newgrange. It was one of the places on my list that I really didn't want to miss. What a beautiful drive to the visitors center. We wound down a very narrow country lane with vegetation covered walls. We pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and it started to drizzle. To get to the visitors center you walk through a beautiful pergola. I saw remnants of some sort of vine, I can only imagine how beautiful that walk would be in the spring. As with any place that has an abundance of water you find a mini waterfall along the walk. What's most impressive is this is just to get to the visitors center!

Newgrange

Newgrange seen in the background of this photo. This is on the walk to the visitors center.

My husband really was at his worst with his cold and decided he just wanted to stay in the car. I made the decision that I wasn't going to do Newgrange alone. The visitors center was empty when we went in and the only way to get to the monument of Newgrange is by shuttle from the visitors center and I really didn't fancy being alone on a shuttle on a wet day with my sweet husband by himself, sick in a car. I don't regret my decision to forgo Newgrange, I know that I'll have the opportunity to go back again. I'm not done with Ireland. 

After Newgrange we got back on the N2 to the M2 with our final destination of Dublin in our sights. Both of us were looking forward to getting to Dublin to spend our last few days without the car. There wasn't a single day that we didn't have our alarm set in the morning, which is not the way you want to spend vacation! We knew that once we were back in Dublin we could rest at ease for a few days with no alarm, no car and no destination we absolutely had to be at. Pure joy.

We parked the car in the car park attached to the Jury's Inn, which cost us an arm and a leg, but we didn't know where else to leave the car. At that point I didn't care how much it was going to cost, I just wanted to be free of that car. We were both ready to walk the streets of Dublin again.