Advertisement
Day 10 Hheather B and Mary R.
Belfast City Tour and river cruise with local guide
Today we started off by traveling across the street for a tour of the Stormont, the legislative branch of Irish government. The Stormont is a large white palace-like building, sitting high on a hill at the end of a long tree-lined driveway. Security was quite tight as might be expected. The building, inside and out, is quite beautiful and full of symbolism. It was such an obvious target for German bombers during World War-2, that it was disguised by coating the whole building with a mixture of black pitch and horse manure. The manure hosted grass seeds, which sprouted and gave the building a blackish green vegetative cast. It was attacked several times but never hit during the war. It took workmen over four years to remove the gunk with brushes and chisels at the end of the war. The tour was quite interesting. Afterwards, we boarded a double-decker bus for a tour of Belfast.
At the end of the tour, we were given two hours to wander around the shopping district
of Belfast and eat lunch. We selected Kitchens Pub for lunch. I had fish & chips with mushy peas and Judy had a good old cheeseburger, made with Irish beef.
We shopped enough to find some very good chocolates and another scarf for Judy.
We boarded the bus for a trip to the docks where we boarded a river launch for a tour of the dock area near the birthplace of the Titanic. The tour presented a different perspective on Belfast. Afterwards we returned to the hotel for a few hours to unwind. Heather & Mary had skipped lunch so after checking in to the hotel they wandered over to a local fish & chips emporium for an order of fish & chips and an order of Cornish pasties. This was the girls’ first pastie and they were delighted with them. A Cornish pasties is a mixture of meat and potatoes baked in a pie crust for eating out of hand.
Several in the group liked the tee shirt that was worn by the commentator on our cruise so Alan called their gift shop and arranged to have them deliver tee shirts to the hotel. On the
front of the shirt it said, “TITANIC, built in Belfast”. On the back it said, “It was alright when it left here!”
We held communion in the pub for about an hour before dinner. By the time the dinner bell rang there were nearly a dozen travelers gathered in the bar, enjoying the craik.
Editors Note: Northern Ireland and Belfast are truly beautiful. The only distrubing part of Belfast is the UVF (Uster Volunteer Force) murals painted on the walls. It is tragic to think some people actually believed it was a religious war when in truth it was a 300 year economic war. Thank God it is over. The only change at the border, that I saw, was a change from Pounds to Euros and the price of gas.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.182s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1138s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb