Northern Ireland

We were up early yesterday morning to get out to the airport to pick up our rental car. Sadly, coffee shops in Dublin are only open 9-5 so we had to skip breakfast to catch an early shuttle. Soon, we were in our much-larger than anticipated rental and heading off to Brú na Bóinne, the largest of the passage tombs in Europe. These particular ones are also super old - dating back to 3200 BCE. I didn’t know anything about passage tombs or that Brú na Bóinne even existed until I was paging through the guidebook but it went on the must-see list pretty quickly.

After driving to the wrong spot (ALWAYS put Visitor Centre into the GPS, people) we arrived right at the time for our tour to begin. Happily, it turns out that your tour actually leaves 45 minutes after your ticket time so that you can spend some time going through the exhibit and learn about what you’re going to see. We had just enough time to see the exhibit and get a cookie before heading to our shuttle bus to take us to Knowth, the first of the two sites we were seeing. It has about 1/3 of all the megalithic art in Western Europe. Just in one spot! We had a tour guide tell us what they have been able to figure out about the passage tombs (very little, other than there are no descendants of the people who built the tombs in Ireland anymore and that they do not think they were built by slaves) and what they are still thinking is the case (the most elite of the elite are buried in the passage tombs, likely only religious leaders were allowed inside.) We were allowed to wander quite freely around the site, including going right up to the kerbstones and a viewing platform on top of the passage tomb, which gave us incredible views of the area. From Knowth, we went to Newgrange, where we were able to go into the passage tomb and see a simulation of what happens on the winter solstice. Newgrange is lined up perfectly so that during the solstice, the light comes into the passage tomb and illuminates the chamber. Really impressive!

Then, it was on to Belfast. After dropping off bags, we started the walk over to Titanic Belfast where we were able to get tickets for one of the last entry times of the day. We had enough time to see the SS Nomadic, a tender that was used to take passengers to the Titanic. It was done up in the style it was originally, which matched the Titanic so that was quite interesting. Then, it was into the museum. It’s more of an interactive showpiece versus a museum, I’d say? The first half was loud and busy and frankly, not enjoyable. But then, at around the halfway mark, you take a little ride that is very much about making the Titanic - not Belfast or the ship maker or ships, in general - and then it totally switches. Not only were the crazy videos and audio clips and loud sounds done away with but people quieted down, too. There were replicas of each class of cabin and lots of info about the fitting of the ship. And then it got to the sinking, taking you through the calls for help, breaking down everything that happened and telling the stories of some of the passengers and crew, both survivors and not. There was also this massive wall with the names of all the dead, which was really overwhelming to see. Finally, there was the aftermath - the new measures put in place as a result of all the little things that went wrong and a bit of an overview of the efforts to access the wreckage.

After that, we still had plenty of daylight so we headed up to West Belfast to see the murals. It was a bit of a hike but the weather was holding and so off we went. It was an interesting walk, particularly seeing the peace line dividing Catholic and Protestant areas. Also, A LOT of Union Jacks flying in the Protestant area. A LOT. Our walk eventually took us back to the city centre where we found a pub for dinner & drinks (Such a good burger! Such a good gin fizz!) before settling into the hotel for the night to do some homework on Derry (yes, I do mean watching Derry Girls.)

This morning, we were up and out early on to get to the Giant’s Causeway (foreigners love the Giant’s Causeway, don’t you know?)  We walked up from Bushmills because what’s an extra couple of kilometres? We started with the red trail, which took us up along the top of the cliffs (are they cliffs? I don’t know…) to give us the bird’s eye view before taking us down and around to the causeway where we were able to clamour all over the causeway. It was such a unique site and we really enjoyed exploring it and we even got to see a little bit of sunshine. Then it was on to Derry!

I think it’s time to admit that I didn’t really like Belfast. To be fair, we only spent half a day there but there just didn’t seem to be a lot of the type of thing that piques our fancy. But Derry charmed me pretty quickly. I love a city with walls, for one, but it also had a cozy small town feel that I liked. After dropping bags and grabbing a very tasty sandwich, we headed up to walk the city walls, giving us some history and beautiful views. While we were on the walls, the hotel arranged a taxi tour for us with Paul, a gentleman with a very personal history and connection to the Troubles. He told us his first hand stories of growing up during that time, of seeing people shot in the streets for no reason, of friends who were killed on Bloody Sunday. He spoke so matter-of-factly about it all, but it was all he knew growing up. His belief is that there will be a unified Ireland in the next 20 years. Time will tell.

Then, it was time to find some dinner. And you’d think that wouldn’t be too tricky. But it was. There’s little open on the restaurant front in Derry after 6 - and so Derry plummeted pretty quickly in EDP’s eyes. We headed into a pub after finding our chosen restaurant closed, where we were kindly advised that basically nothing would be open and directed to somewhere the locals all go. I think the locals AND the tourists all go because there’s nothing else open. It worked out all right, though.

Tomorrow, we head back to Ireland to start our drive along the coast and my first chance to see puffins. So far, the rain has held off so we’re counting our lucky pennies and hoping for more of the same!