Knowth, Republic of IrelandThis was another morning bus ride out of Dublin to a Neolithic site. The

Knowth, Republic of IrelandThis was another morning bus ride out of Dublin to a Neolithic site. The goal here was Newgrange, but that wound up being a bit of an adventure. The closest public transit stop is about 3.5 miles from the Newgrange & Knowth visitor center, so I had a nice walk. At the time, the visitor center itself was closed, so the entrance/tour fee was reduced to €5 (for the complete tour, it would normally be €18). Tours run simultaneously (both sites at the same time) in, I believe, 90 min chunks, so if you arrive at 10, there’s a tour leaving for each site at 10:30, then the next round is at 12. For me, the first Newgrange tour was full but the Knowth one was not, and since I wanted to see both regardless that was fine by me.Please note: I visited in September 2019. A number of things have changed, including the entry fee, the timing of tours, and entrance into the Knowth passage tomb.Knowth is…ridiculous. Amazing! Ridiculous. The central tomb is the largest passage tomb in Ireland, but it’s been surrounded by 17 smaller, contemporaneous passage tombs. Additionally, the central tomb a) actually has two tombs, one of which is a crucifix and the other a straight passage, b) has a third of Western Europe’s megalithic carvings c) on the INSIDE of the stones placed around the base, and d) once housed a Christian settlement on top. Great.This post was already approaching 10 photos so those of the carvings will come in a separate post. Photos 1 and 2 are of the exterior. We don’t know if these tombs were designed as grass-covered hills or if the stone was supposed to be the exterior, but grass-covered hills they quickly developed into and grass-covered hills they remain. Most of the tombs have had their entrances excavated, even if today visitors aren’t allowed inside. Photo 3 is of the blocked entrance to the large tomb, and Photo 4 is of a smaller tomb’s entrance. Photo 5 shows what the small tombs look like in their entirety: A dome, an entry, and a base surrounded by flagstones.Photos 6 and 7 show how complex the site is. Large tombs, small tombs, open tombs, closed tombs. The tour involved walking around the site first, then a presentation inside the large tomb, followed by about a half hour to take photos before bussing back to the visitor center. Photo 8 is where we get to that Christian settlement. The central tomb is large, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not huge, and the settlement couldn’t have been beyond small town size. But at this point, Viking raids were common in the area, and so the town was walled and also had an escape route. Photo 8 is of the entry to a tunnel that led down to one of the tombs. Pretty cool.And then there’s the tomb itself. Again, it seems that they have closed this off so please appreciate my pictures, which were taken using my typical style of “point the camera at the thing and hope it works”. Even last year only one of the two shafts was open, but it was impressively long nevertheless–and unlike at Maeshowe, this tunnel doesn’t even make it halfway into the mound! There’s also a turnoff that, if I remember correctly, was where the Christian tunnel led to, but it’s not clear what it was for originally.Overall: Amazing. Knowth was an incidental but I honestly enjoyed it more than the more crowded Newgrange. Photos of the carvings will come! -- source link

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