Emmy and Clyde-BELFAST

Ok, so the next leg of our journey took us on a two hour train ride along the eastern coast of Ireland and up into Northern Ireland. It was a beautiful ride through the countryside and we could see the Mourne Mountains once we got into Northern Ireland. We walked from the train station to Donegal Square in downtown Belfast. Couldn’t help, but compare things in Belfast to London landmarks. There was the gorgeous city hall that resembled St. Paul’s. Right next to that was a Ferris wheel that reminded us of the London Eye and a clock tower like Big Ben. Anyway, we walked around for a bit and after visiting the TI centre decided to do a hop on-hop off bus tour of the city that took us into the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods of Belfast, something we both really wanted to see. Around 4 we hoped on the bus after eating at Subway…yes we’re that cool. The tour was awesome! It took us out to the docks where the Titanic was built and the two biggest cranes in the world. It went around the city, explaining things along the way, then onto Shankill Road, a large Protestant neighborhood with lots of murals dealing with “the troubles” and unionist supporters. Then we went through the open peace wall, it’s locked after 7pm every night, but only a few years ago it was a checkpoint and guarded day and night. Then we went to Falls Road which is a heavily Catholic area with its own murals and memorials to those lost in the fighting. It was hard to believe what went on there not too long ago and that gunmen were snipping from apartment buildings and gun battles were going on across the very roads we were traveling on. They told us that it wasn’t until recently that the buses could go into those neighborhoods safely and that before, tourist weren’t safe because if they didn’t recognize you they thought you could be a terrorist planting a bomb. It was a fantastic tour and we were both glad that we decided to do it. We had a hotel booked in Antrim, not far from Belfast airport and the TI people told us that there was a bus that went directly to the airport from just outside the centre. It was suppose to come like every 20min or something, but we (along with some other very annoyed people) waited for almost an hour. When it finally did come though we got a free ride! So in a way it was worth it, I warmed up eventually. We had a really nice dinner in Antrim near the hotel at a place called Moe’s Grill. It was sort of American-ish, but pretty nice. We got Kopparberg, my favorite drink I’ve found here in the UK. It’s an alcoholic cider (all cider here is alcoholic, not the kind you get from apple orchards in the states) and it comes in apple, pear or mixed fruit. Dave got apple and I had pear and it was wonderful! We’re now both big fans! :) We had got a rental car at the airport so we could drive up to the Antrim coast on Saturday.