Ever since we moved to Ireland I have wanted to do a road trip to visit Northern Ireland. We finally did it! St. Patrick's Day is a government holiday here so Marco had a long weekend and we decided to take advantage of it. It was totally a last minute decision, but well worth it. Luckily, we both love to travel without too many plans, just a rough idea of where we want to go. So we packed our maps and guide books, rented a car and headed off for a little adventure. This was only the 2nd time Marco had driven here on the left side, but after a few hours he was like an old pro! And I sat in the passenger seat as the official navigator of Irish roadsigns and confusing roundabouts.
We decided to head to the north-west side of the island and just see how far we could get the first afternoon. We passed through Sligo, but felt like we wanted to keep going. I had heard people talk about Donegal before, so we found it on the map and decided that was our destination for the night. Donegal Town was a few kilometers off the main road, but turned out to be a quaint little town. We arrived after dark, so couldn't see too much, but did a quick spin around the town to see what was there. We followed a sign to a B&B and checked in for the night. One of the guidebooks gave advice on good places to eat and had mentioned a little Italian place in town. So we walked the few blocks back to town and stumbled across that very place. The guide book was right, it was a delicious and reasonably priced Italian meal. We took a quick walk around the city and then headed back to the B&B for the night. The next morning we had our "Full Irish Breakfast" (eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, grilled tomatoes, etc) and hit the road.
We weren't sure how long it would take us to get places on this trip. In Ireland, the distance between places is not that far, but many of the roads are tiny, winding roads with lots of potholes so you can't actually go that fast. However, we were surprised at how quickly the trip went! Anyway, this day we were headed for the northern coastline. Now, one thing that many people don't know is that Northern Ireland is a separate country from The Republic of Ireland. We live in the Republic. Northern Ireland is part of the UK under the British. Technically, Marco needs a visa to travel anywhere in Europe outside of The Republic of Ireland. Several people had told us that there really aren't borders between the two, so we decided to take a chance and go. Funny enough, we were driving along a highway somewhere around Derry, not paying attention, and suddenly realized we had crossed the "border". We noticed that road signs had changed and all of a sudden things looked a little bit nicer and that was it....we were in Northern Ireland. Easiest international border crossing in history!
We wound our way around some of the most beautiful coastline we had ever seen. We had fairly good weather the whole trip, although it was quite windy and cold. Good weather here means no rain. We stopped for a few minutes in a cute coastal town called Portrush. We got out and took a few pictures, but the wind was so strong that we got back in the car. We decided that we needed to get some local currency for the trip (they use pounds, we use euros) so we went in search of an ATM. We walked through some more gale force winds (literally!), got our money and hit the road again.
Our next stop was the medieval Dunluce Castle. It was originally built around 1200 and is set right on a cliff overlooking the ocean. It's mostly just stone walls now, but you can really imagine what life must have been like back then. It had the most spectacular views, but again we had to deal with gale force winds! There was one spot where you could barely stand up because the wind was so strong. We got a few good laughs at that point, especially about what the wind did to my hair. One of the interesting stories about the castle is that at some point in history, the kitchen literally fell off the cliffs, taking a few of the house servants along with it. After walking around the grounds, we stopped into the little tea house and had a nice hot cup of tea to warm up.
We then hit the road for our next destination. The Giant's Causeway is a World Heritage Site and was one of the places I wanted to visit most on this trip. It is a natural wonder that was formed by a volcanic eruption that created stones/pillars mostly in hexagonal shapes. We parked at the top of the hill and walked about 10 minutes down to the main site. It really is hard to believe that this place was naturally formed because some of the rocks look so perfect. There were large formations that you could walk across, and others that sort of jutted out the side of the cliffs. It was truly amazing! We spent about an hour walking along the trails to see all of the formations and then headed back. The hike back was a bit more challenging than the walk down! If I remember correctly, it was all uphill and included something like 162 stair-steps. Normally this wouldn't be so difficult, but everything is harder when you are pregnant! Needless to say, we got some good exercise that day. We stopped in a nearby town for lunch and then headed off for our next destination....Belfast.
We decided to take the scenic route for some more beautiful coastal views. Of course we saw plenty of farms, sheep and cows along the way. :) We arrived in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland sometime late afternoon. We had no idea where we were going to stay, so we drove around the downtown area a bit to explore. We stopped in a couple of places that were either full or way too expensive. We turned down a little residential street and stumbled across the cutest little B&B just a few blocks from the main road. They had nice rooms for a great price, so we checked in for the night. We rested up a bit and browsed through the guidebooks to plan our activities. We got all cleaned up and headed out to explore the downtown area after dark. It was dinner time, so we set out to find a good place to eat. We both love ethnic food, so trips to the big city usually mean we look for a good ethnic restaurant, as the options are usually better. We walked and walked and couldn't find anything interesting. Finally, as we were about to give up, we stumbled across a Lebanese place....one of our favorite types of food! Although the meal wasn't everything we had dreamed of, it certainly wasn't bad and we were grateful for that. We walked around a bit more and then headed back to the B&B for the night.
After another Full Irish Breakfast, our host recommended we take a Black Taxi Tour to explore the political history of Belfast. For many years this was a place of violent political unrest. Essentially, there was a group claiming to represent Nationalists (predominantly Catholic) and a group claiming to represent Unionists (predominantly Protestant). The Nationalists consider themselves Irish and wanted Northern Ireland to be politically united with the rest of Ireland, while the Unionists consider themselves British and wanted to remain part of the UK. Paramilitary groups formed to fight against the British and there were many decades of brutal violence. The city was separated into Catholic and Protestant sides to try and control some of the violence. Although most of the violence has ceased since an agreement was signed in 1998, there still remains a separatist approach to life in Belfast. There is still a huge wall between the Catholic side and Protestant side of the city. You drive down the Catholic side and the curbs are painted orange, white and green for the colors of the Irish flag. On the protestant side the curbs are red, white and blue. Houses that are near the wall have wire cages built around the patios and windows in case people from the other side throw bricks over. There are large murals painted on the sides of buildings that depict what some people view as heroes of the struggle, while the other side would view them as murderers. Our taxi driver, Pat, gave us some very interesting insight into the history of the struggle and where things stand today. It was a fascinating experience and I would highly recommend it if you are ever in Belfast.
There are lots of other things you can do in Belfast, but not many of them appealed to us. The only museum we wanted to visit was closed for remodeling, so we decided to hit the road and get out of the big city. While flipping through the guidebooks, we stumbled across a place called Newgrange that looked quite interesting, so we headed that direction. Newgrange is a prehistoric tomb that was built around 3000 BC, which makes it about 500 years older than the great Pyramids in Egypt!!! From the outside it looks like a big mound built into the ground, but inside it contains a chamber with intricately carved stones that was likely used for ceremonial burials. The entrance passage was built with precise solar alignment so that only once a year, at dawn on the day of winter solstice, the sun shines through and lights the chamber for a few minutes. Although the site itself is in the middle of nowhere and rather small, it is well worth seeing.
After leaving Newgrange we thought we would find some cute farmhouse B&B and spend a relaxing evening there. We drove and drove and couldn't find anything that looked good. We decided to just keep driving in the direction of Galway and thought we would find something along the way. Marco had fun driving those little back country roads all the way! There was one stretch of road where we would see a speed limit sign that said 100 km/hr, and then 20 yards later there would be a "Dangerous Curves" sign. This went on for hours and we just laughed about how ridiculous that seemed. We did see some people going nearly that fast on those tiny little roads, but luckily we made it safely. We stopped in a town called Mullingar for dinner and decided to see if there were any cute places to stay. We were not inspired by anything, so we had dinner and decided just to push through and drive home. We arrived about 10:30pm and went straight to bed! All in all, it was a great weekend trip and we can now check some more places off of our "list".
together. Then it's on to Lima on Thursday, where we will spend a month with Marco's family. I'm excited because we will get to do a bit of traveling to Arequipa (where Marco was born) and the beaches in the north of Peru. It should be a fantastic trip and lots of attention for the wee one! I'll try to write and post pictures when we get back in January.
