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Published: June 21st 2007
So I have finally found some sun! yay! I spent Saturday night in Dublin and meant up with the tour group I hung out with in Galway since their tour ended that night in Dublin. We went out to the Temple Bar, which is apparently THE bar to go to in Ireland. It was insanely packed but fun none the less. It was great to have a group of people I knew already to hang out with for the night.
The next day I took a bus to Belfast and spent the afternoon wandering around the city. It was a pretty nice city, but the history there was what I was really interested in seeing, so I booked a day tour of Northern Ireland for the next day. First stop was the Giant´s Causeway which is basically a landscape made up of a bunch of interlocking octagonal columns. It´s hard to explain, just look at the pics. It was absolutely incredible to see in person. Next stop was a walking tour of Derry, which has played a pretty big role in the conflict between the unionists and nationalists in the country (this is where Bloody Sunday happened) so it
was a pretty interesting and eye opening tour. I then caught a bus back to Dublin and spent the night there.
The next morning I caught a flight to Porto, Portugal (woohoo!) On the flight I meant Victoria, an American also travelling alone. So we struggled together to find our way from the airport to the city centre. Travelling in a city where you don´t speak the language is alot more difficult than I had expected. Something as simple as finding the bus we needed was a challenge. But we somehow made it into town. First impressions of Porto: I LOVE it. It has replaced Edinburgh as my favorite city, which, for those of you who have been to Edinburgh know, is saying alot. It´s so beautiful, every street I turned onto was like a postcard. That night I went for some drinks with Victoria and some people from the hostel. It was so nice. We were right on the waterfront and got to see the sunset over the city.
So, I was told I couldn´t leave without trying port wine, which is what Portugal is most well known for. So the next day I went with a
couple people from the hostel to some port wine tasting. There are ALOT of wineries in the city. They are all along the same road and most of them provide free tasting of a couple of their most popular wines. So, we basically went from one store to the next getting these free tastings all afternoon.
This morning I set out to go to Lisbon and had my first experience with the metro in another language. I was totally lost. I had no idea which train to take. Luckily the "I´m lost" look is apparently universal. And everytime I got stuck a friendly Portuguese person would help me out. So one metro ride, train ride, and bus ride later I finally arrived in Lisbon, which is where I am now. The hostels were totally booked for the weekend though so it looks like I´m heading south to the beaches tomorrow for the weekend. Fine by me!
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James
non-member comment
Portugal
Glad to here you got to Portugal. I never spent a lot of time in Porto but I recognize some of the Lisbon pictures. I really enjoyed my time there, so hopefully you do too. Did you find any big Jesus's on the hills there? Make sure you tell Erika how good Portugal is she'll be easily convinced to go back over there with me sometime.