Spent the best part of the day in Belfast today. Found a car park handy to the city and headed off to find Castle Place, where the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus was departing from. With the help of a friendly gentleman, we asked for directions, this proved easy enough. Less easy was finding somewhere to have breakfast after we purchased our HOHO ticket. We managed to find somewhere for bacon and scrambled eggs but no gluten-free toast for Jill.
As there was a cruise ship in at the moment they had extra busses on so we were off about 9:45 rather than 10 o'clock. The Belfast HOHO gets a pretty good wrap on Trip Advisor and we would have to agree. We had a human guide rather than a taped version and he was very good. In addition to a run around the city to see the usual tourist attractions (Titanic Belfast) and civic buildings (Parliament House) we also visited the catholic and protestant areas of Belfast, Falls and Shankill where all the problems existed at the 80s and 90s. Was good to get the background. Like the Bogside in Derry, lots of murals, except this time they were in both camps. It was obvious when you were in a Protestant enclave – lots of Union Jacks and Flag of Ulster flying (as they were where we stayed last night).
We also took a second tour which went out as far as Carrickfergus Castle (of William of Orange Fame), travelling via Belfast Castle along the way.
After all that it was time for a late lunch. Some nice Asian in Victoria Square.
Back to the car, we headed south towards Dublin. Accommodation tonight was at Ballymakellett just off the motorway near Dundalk, back over the Irish border. We were there about 3:30pm (you can cover a lot of kilometres at 120kph) so decided to travel around the Carlingford which we had been told was a pretty spot. It was a cute little village and they also had some nice ice-cream/sorbet.
There was no sign of Denise, our host, when we got to her house. She had sent us a text to say the key was under a pot plant. This is the third time this has happened with Airbnbs. A bit strange we thought. We have a downstairs bedroom which was very handy. We needed to sort things out for our flight tomorrow. First time our big bags have been out of the car for some time.
Called down to the local pub to investigate dinner but no food. We had a Guinness and brandy instead. They recommended we go to Fitzpatrick's a few k's down the road. We were expecting to have something light for dinner but it ended up that Fitzpatrick's was a Michelin Star restaurant. Our Cod and Lobster were the best meals we have had in Ireland.
Back to our accommodation to do blogs and journals when Denise finally turned up about 9:45. Very chatty but also very busy. She'll be off again in the morning before we're up.
