Tea in the Ruins Where Braveheart Was Filmed, and an Hour Inside Trim

Dublin

Pickup from any point in the Dublin area or beyond, usually your hotel, or wherever else suits you.

Hill of Tara

A guided walk around Tara, a prehistoric burial site and one of the places the Irish imagination keeps returning to. The oldest monument on the hill is the Mound of Hostages, built in the Neolithic; the large ritual monuments around it went up in the Iron Age. The guide covers the legendary kings of Tara, how Celtic society lived and what it practised, and the objects recovered from the hill's hundred-plus archaeological sites.

Trim Castle

Trim is the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland, and it stands in enough open ground to be seen properly from outside before the one-hour tour inside. The guide covers the Norman conquest, the men who owned the castle, and the later chapters of Irish history that ran through it. Then a walk around the town of Trim, which has the oldest bridge in Ireland, medieval buildings, and 18th and 19th-century houses. Lunch is in one of the cafés there.

Costo extra

Bective Abbey

Bective Abbey is the stop that needs a guide to make sense. The ruins of the medieval monastery are unusually well preserved, and what is left is a maze of passages with dead ends and stairs that stop halfway. The guide supplies the history and the lives of the monks who used them. Several scenes of Mel Gibson's Braveheart were filmed here. Tea, coffee and something to eat are laid on in the ruins.