Northern Ireland

After a two hour ferry ride, we arrived in Larne, 30min from Belfast. Which is where we headed first to start off our tour of Northern Ireland.

I was left in a somewhat dodgy little car park not far from the University of Belfast and only some 3km from the city center. My human and Carmelo set off to check out the city while I started observing very closely who was walking past me.

Belfast has a somewhat dubious reputation due to it's rather recent history of the Struggles, where Unionist and Liberal groups crashed in a rather extraordinary display of violence over many years.

But these days it's actually a very modern, vibrant city with a thriving university and a good food and bar scene. Although, as my human had to learn, after 7pm on a Sunday, it is very difficult to get something to eat that is not Italian, Chinese or Indian. 

The Hotel Europa, the most bombed hotel in the world during the Struggles

Belfast used to have huge linen and shipbuilding industries in the 19th Century.

It is no coincidence that the most famous ship to ever sail the oceans (well, one ocean, for a very short time) was built here in 1913, the Titanic. 

And so the number one tourist attraction is the Titanic Belfast, a super modern building which houses an amazing exhibition about everything surrounding the ship, from the building process to it's dramatic end. 

Titanic Belfast

A 1st class cabin

2nd class cabin

Note the bottom line

Only the actual reason of why the ship sunk is somehow not mentioned. There is no fake iceberg nor any kind of explanation. I guess, they don't want to be pointing fingers, but then, it's part of the story, no?

Either way, they spent a good three hours in there, so it must have been very interesting.

Doesn't look like much, but this is where Game of Thrones was produced

There are various monuments to the Titanic around the city, and indeed around the world, or rather to the people who have died. But there is a special one:

This one names every single person that has died in the tragedy. But, with a twist. You see the names with the asterisks next to them? 

These two are not mentioned on any other monument of this kind anywhere. Why? The identities of those two men were stolen. After the disaster, their bodies were retrieved days later and the wives were contacted with the information that their husbands had died on the Titanic. Only for them to declare that this was hardly possible since they had gone to work that morning. So to this day no one knows who these two men were. 

They visited the Ulster Museum with it's great collection of art, historic artifacts and interesting exhibitions. Currently they are showing one regarding the Struggles. And although she read every panel and looked at all the pieces on display, it still is kind of impossible to understand how this could all have happened in the way it did. So much pain, grieve and destruction, for what?

The Ulster Museum

May I introduce, Takabuti, the Mummie

Japanese Spider Crab, the largest living crustacean

No visit to the city is complete without visiting the Peace Walls in West Belfast. The most intense fighting has occurred here.

These are 6m high walls made out of corrugated steel, concrete and chain link with gates in between. They cover some 34km! They divide Belfast's Protestant and Catholic communities to this day. Why they are called Peace Walls is beyond me.

During the day, while my human was riding her bike around the area, all the gates were open. In the evening, when we left the city, Google Maps told us to drive right through those gates, not knowing they were now closed. Neither did we. It took some doing to actually get out of this area. 

Also, as we were trying to find our way out, we passed a couple of large groups of young boys and had a weird feeling about them, like they would pick up rocks and throw them at us in a heartbeat. And there is still plenty of rubble and rocks, broken buildings and huge holes in the ground in this part of the city. I guess the tourist busses don't come here much.

Between Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second biggest city, there lies the Causeway Coast. It's like Scotland's NC500, just on a smaller scale. 

We stopped at the Carnfunnock Country Park, which is, as we now know, where the Tooth Ferry lives, for a leisurely stroll before heading on to Whitepark Bay. From there my human took a bus to Portrush, some 20km's away, to then walk all the way back along this amazing coastline, stopping at the Giant's Causeway.

Great spot to spend the night

This is Northern Ireland's only UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is a large area of closely packed, hexagonal stone columns. Coming here in the early afternoon isn't the greatest idea, you almost see more people than columns, and there are meant to be around 6000.

Of course, there is a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, but the far better story involves the Irish giant Finn McCool, who built the causeway so he could cross the sea to fight the Scottish giant Benadndonner.

 

With a brief stop in Bushmills to visit the world's oldest distillery, we headed for Portrush once more. This is NI's version of Disney Land, with roller coasters, a ferries wheel and the smell of fairy floss permeating the air. 

120km after leaving Belfast, we arrived in Derry/Londonderry, the Walled City. You can walk all the way around the old center on the 17th Century Walls in around one hour with great views in and out. 

This city was just as affected by the Struggles as was Belfast, but not much is left to remember of the turmoil. It was the UK's city of culture in 2013 and therefore received a mayor makeover. 

The 2011 Peace Bridge spans the river Foyle like an elegant handshake between two formerly segregated parts of the city. 

Just outside the walls stands the pretty guildhall, bombed by the IRA twice for being the headquarters of the Protestants at the time. 

We might come back to NI at a later point, but now we are moving into the Republic of Ireland to catch up with a friend my human has met at see many years ago and hasn't seen since.