Dublin and Belfast

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Yesterday was Guinness day. That's right we went and did the brewery tour and had a great old time. It’s a self guided tour through a museum dedicated to the history and brewing of the Great beer. What did we do... we skipped all that and went straight to the top to have our Guinness. The "last" stop on the tour is a free pint in the Gravity Bar... 7 stories up with a 360 degree view of Dublin. After our pint we worked our way backwards through the exhibits. After a stop at the Guinness store for some paraphernalia we hopped onto the “hop on hop off” tour bus that takes you to all the sites around Dublin. I would highly recommend this to people who visit as it gets you to most sites around town. After the tour it was time for a bit of shopping on Grafton Street, supposedly the 5th most expensive street in the world for shopping. Then it was out for our last dinner and pint with the crew as they left for home this morning.

Today Michelle and I decided to take a trip up to Belfast. 2 hours on the train and 20 Euros each (return) and we were there. It’s a pretty nice little city... we took an open bus tour that pretty much covered everything. We saw where the Titanic was built, the Parliament, the "great" peace wall, the political murals from both sides of the conflict, and even got bombed.... Some little hooligans threw water balloons at the bus... hit an old guy pretty hard right in the face... After the bus tour we toured around St. Anne’s Cathedral and then went through the downtown shopping district. Michelle and I felt there's still a bit of a dark cloud hanging over the city but they've definitely made great strides since the conflict of 10 plus years ago and the people seem much more positive. Some the recent construction work is amazing and provides for some excellent examples of how to revitalize a downtown core. After that we hopped back onto the train to Dublin, freshened up and went out for a late dinner.... the exiting part about this is that it only took a minute to figure out the bill!!

We’re off to Scotland on Thursday so we don’t know when we’ll have internet access again. We been in touch soon.

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Photos

Guinness
The entrance to the St. James Gate Brewery

Mike's Great Guinness
Mike contemplating his Guinness

Craic
It's all about fun

The Titanic Dry Dock
The people of Belfast say of the Titanic "She was fine when she left us"

Sampson and Goliath
The cranes used in ship building... they're putting together wind turbines right now... imangine that

Bombardier
Bombardier has and aircraft manufacturing facility here

St. Anne's Cathedral
The largest Celtic cross ever

Belfast's Big Wheel
Belfast has a big wheel just like london

Comments

[Ray]

Quack, Quack.....
great to be home where someone is quackers about you and you are quackers about them.... ;-) It was great sharing the time with everyone...the full experience! Continued safe travels, Ray

[Rhonda]

awhhh!
Hey guys! Belfast seemed very interesting especially after our history lessons, so cool that you went! I don't know how your feeling but I'm sad I've left and could be right back there with you! Keep having fun! Rhonda