Blogs from County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 4

“Sinking head down. Come soon as possible.” Titanic to Olympic, 1:10 am, April 15, 1912 We enjoyed our last breakfast at the Anchor House B&B in Dublin this morning. Both Susan and I had poached eggs on toast with beans. I’ve had more eggs and beans the last while than I’ve had for a long time ?. We left just before 9 am and walked about 10 minutes in the rain to Connolly train station, where we entered the code into the machines and got our tickets for the train to Belfast (we had booked the train tickets online). After a short while we boarded our train and found our seats. Most of the seating is laid out with four seats facing each other, with a table in between. A sweet older couple from Newry, Northern ... read more

The Other Half had checked her step counter and decided I had walked her too far the previous day. It was not Barcelona mileage, but she reckoned that over 9 miles was pushing it a bit far on her dodgy foot. She insisted a bus day ticket was the order of the day. I checked the timetables. Buses early on a Sunday morning were best described as sparse, but we intercepted a 7 on the way into the city centre. I purchased our 2 all day tickets at £4 each. The plan was to link with one of the shiny new Glider buses that ferry folk across the city, with a view to arriving at the Titanic Experience around opening time. We were ahead of schedule and the G2 didn't start running until 9:30 am, but ... read more

Thursday October 18 - We had breakfast again at the house before leaving. All of the airbnbs that we’ve stayed at on this trip have offered breakfast - some cooked and some continental, but all were lovely. Today we finished the Antrim coast drive. We headed first to nearby Dunluce castle to take a peek, and then to Portrush to look around. Next we headed to Whiterocks beach. We ate some chips in the car for lunch and then walked over to Downhill Demesne and Mussenden Temple. I’m glad we walked because it was pretty, and I think the site was closed, so I’m not sure we could have parked/entered from the front. The Demesne is an old large house that is in ruins now, after maybe 60 years of being unoccupied. The Temple was built ... read more

Tuesday October 16 - Didn’t sleep very well and had to get up at 5am to get ready for the flight. We got to the car rental return around 6am, a little nervous that there would be problems, after our hideous pick-up in Bristol. But it was very easy and they drove us a few others back to the airport without any problems. We checked in with Easyjet, dropped off our bag and found a place to sit down. Our flight was at 8:45 so we were a bit early. We ate our sandwiches and played around on wifi. My computer had been acting up, and I was very worried it would die, but it still worked, even if it took a few failed attempts to get it going. The flight boarded before they even really ... read more

Was able to sleep in a bit this morning, which was nice. I had booked a black cab tour and was being picked up at 10am. My driver, John, arrived on time and we set off in his black cab. The purpose of the tour today was to get a better understanding of what the people of Belfast call "The Troubles" and to visit some of the locations that have become synonymous with this period in their history. Our first stop was on Falls Rd to see the International Wall and John explained where all the angst began. We are commonly told it was a fight between Catholics and Protestants but the conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events. The Unionists/loyalists, who were mostly Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United ... read more