We started our mini Northern Ireland tour in Belfast, a neat compact city that you can pretty much divide into 3 main areas (for the tourist)…the very British Victorian central city – right up to the people lounging on the grass in the sun outside the Belfast City central hall;  The Queens University area, where we lodged ourselves at the Tara hotel (reasonable price, close to some nice restaurants and a healthy hike to the centre but not excessive)- a bit to the south of the centre and giving off a shabby and chic vibe of a university area; and the waterfront area up towards Titanic.  It was a short stay for us but as always we tried to pack in as much as possible.   This required a copious number of steps to get around the city.

Starting with Big Fish, down by the river…aka the Salmon of knowledge, to celebrate the return of salmon to the River Lagan after it went through a good clean up, decorated with bits of Belfast’s history, but the main goal to give it a kiss on the lips…probably the most kissed fish in the UK!

The Victoria centre – now normally Matt will try to avoid shopping areas like the plague but this place is worth a little side trip in order to go to the top for an excellent panoramic view of the city – with few high rises you will get to see all that the city has plus the Stormont parliament up on the hill above.

The Crumlin Road Gaol – With it’s tourist ready clean and shiny shean it did not look such a bad place to do your time, but in its heyday, the prison housed ~500 men, women, children of all religions and race in salubrious Victorian style (the Victorians were known for their morals and frugality!); you will get a great tour of the Gaol these days and there is a bit of a shocker towards the end that we’ll keep for your own surprise when you visit!

As you head back down into the city centre from the Gaol keep an eye out for all the colourful murals and street art that Belfast has on display, especially a little detour to the Duke of York pub where you can not only enjoy a nice glass of Guinness but also a plethora of street are that has a bit of both satire and Coronation street to it all!

Hungry for some lunch, but not really sure what you exactly want then head to St George’s market which is what we all dream to have as a local market just round the corner from our homes, produce to buy, food stalls to taste and pockets of entertainment strung around this 19th century market.  Half a dozen oysters for 5 pounds is a particularly a good and tasty deal to have.

Top of the World!

If you had not really read your guidebook or this blog before arriving in Belfast, then you may be scratching your head over why all the references to Titanic in this city, after all when Leonardo and Kate took their ill-fated trip on this gargantuan ship there wasn’t much reference to Northern Ireland or Ireland apart from Kate downing a pint of Guinness and doing a bit of an Irish jig. It is in fact because the boat was designed, built and launched in the Belfast dockyards by the Harland and Wolff company, whose cranes and gantries still dominate the Belfast skyline.  So Titanic is a big thing in Belfast (literally a giant!) and hence it has it’s own museum that is a must see for visitors to the city  – set in it’s own district of the city on the river the museum is a full on multi-media experience with neat displays, visual showcases, copious information and even a theme park type ride that takes you through the bowels of the ship as it was constructed.  Back in 2016 this was voted the wold’s best tourist attraction and gets hundreds of thousands of visitors per year…but no great queues or backlogs as the exhibit keeps people moving effectively.  Whilst here you can also visit the last white star ship, the SS Nomadic that was a tender for the Titanic when it passed by Cherbourg to pick up passengers…worth a stop, if only to dress up in period costume and pretend you are going on a luxury cruise.

A little word of warning for night-time dining in Belfast – basically it needs to be done early, restaurants will normally take their last bookings at 9pm…so those of you with latin temperaments will need to skip siesta and go for a northern European-timed dinner.  On our first day we skipped lunch, so dinner at Holohan’s restaurant at 7.30pm was perfectly timed for our tummies, a charming bistro style restaurant in the Queen’s quarter- the seafood boxty is the main event  -meaning “poor-house bread” but is a delicious potato pancake filled with seafood and cream and is a carb heaven (for those that have been on a bit of a holiday from carbs).

Belfast has plenty more to see and do and is worth a long weekend all in itself but we had more to see in the surrounding areas so it was time for us to head north and up along the coastal causeway.  Our time on this trip was even more constrained as we were racing against bad weather that meant timing was crucial and also last minute based on where the black clouds were at any time! Just under 1.5 hrs north of Belfast is the unique Giant’s Causeway – named as one of the natural wonders of the UK with ~40,000 basalt columns that snugly fit together in hexagonal shapes to form an amazing patio into the sea.  The closest parking will set you back 10 GBP p/p, but it’s handy if you are on a time budget, and you can feel good that it is going to the National Trust to look after monuments such as this. If you find yourself in the UK for a ltlle longer period then it is worth to get yourself NT membership, you don’t need to be a local, and 3-4 trips will recoup the cost of membership.  Walking down to the causeway (there is a tourist train too) you’ll find tourist clambering about these like ants, but even though you will always be able to find your own spot to get your secluded picture if you try hard enough.

Big queues to see the Giant’s organ!

As always, the legend behind this causeway is far more exciting than the geological reality (unless you are a geologist), so the story goes an Irish Giant named Finn MacCool received a challenge from a Scottish giant (a sort of rumble in the giant jungle); so Finn built the causeway across to Scotland in order to get across and sort out our Scots friend. The story diverges a bit at this point although Finn is always a winner but the most amusing says that Finn’s wife dressed him up as a baby in a cot and when the Scottish Giant came across for the fight, he saw the baby, got freaked out about how big the father must be if this was the baby and fled back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he went – hence we now rely on Ryan air to get to Northern Ireland and not a nice trip along a the causeway!  Half a day can easily be consumed exploring this area.  Once you are done with the causeway, then you can take a short circular hike along the coast and back along the cliffs above to the visitor centre – you’ll find all things suitably ‘Giant’ along the way…a rock shaped like a boot – the Giant’s Boot  – a rock formation called the Giant’s Organ (the church type of organ!).  Along the cliffs is also a perfect spot to take a Darwinian-award selfie as there are no barriers to the edge.

After all this you will no doubt have built up a giant appetite, skip the queues of the onsite restaurants and instead head into neighbouring Bushmills where you can find several great options for lunch – ours being Tartine at the Distillers Arms pub – great food, nice prices and some really tasty local beer to go with it (try the Rathlin Red Ale).  Next door to the pub is the Bushmills distillery, unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to visit, but did the next best thing to have a whisky tasting at the airport duty free on our flight out – we can’t describe whisky anywhere near like a professional, all we will say it it is very nice and we have a bottle of the 12yr old malt in our cupboard at home!

Post lunch you can go for yet more coastal walks with a visit to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, don’t get there too late as entrances are timed to make sure that the path and the bridge are not overburdened at any one time, and for sure it is very popular.  First constructed nearly 350 years ago by fishermen wanting to cross to the island of the same name it is now hooking tourists by the netload to get a scenic selfie crossing 30m above the beautiful North Channel on a very precarious (but safe) rope bridge.

After a full day of coastal air we continued further around the northern coastline to spend the night in Derry – close to the border with the Republic of Ireland, this was where the conflict known as The Troubles are said to have started.  Fortunately for you dear follower, this is not a political blog, so we’ll stick to the travel stories, but entering the city you will see all the Republican slogans and paintings on walls and houses across the city, which makes a fascinating sight to see in Western Europe in this day and age and does give you pause for thought on the divisions in countries down to religion and politics.  Derry is also Europe’s best-preserved walled city and a wander along the walls after dinner to watch the sun casting its setting glow past the soaring spire of St Eugene’s Cathedral is the best way to end your day.

The King’s Guard have upgraded their horses

The Game of Thrones – our final day had been planned to pass through the south of NI but we had not finished with the northern coast and particularly the filming locations of GoT, so it was back west for us and to immerse ourselves in fantasy!  NI has a lot of filming locations for the show, and typically when you arrive at them you will find a nice information panel that describes the scene and the location, so there’s small chance of ending up in the wrong spot – in some locations the sheer number of crowds and GoT tour buses will also give the game away.  Prime GoT spot is just to the south of the Giant’s causeway – the Dark Hedges – a country lane arched with gnarly beach trees that was the filming location of the King’s Road.  In addition to its TV fame the location is beautiful and makes for some great pictures…if you can crop out all the crowds visiting to take their pictures.  We visited just before the traffic ban, so it was all rather chaotic with cars and buses parking and passing up and down the road and frustrated locals trying to speed by on the daily business…nowadays it is probably a much calmer and photogenic affair with people parking up a way away and experiencing the site on foot.  Next a bit further south to the Cushenden Caves, just round the corner from a sleepy holiday village and deserted of TV location hunters, again beautiful in itself and the location where the sorceress Melisandre gave birth to her shadow baby that was sent (spoiler alert!) to kill Renly.  Our final GoT location was to the Iron Islands – aka Ballintoy Harbour, such an alluring place, especially later in the afternoon when the sun is coming down – you will reach it down a switchback road and hopefully you’ll catch it at a sleepy moment where you can just take it all in and picture how the computers superimposed the home of the Greyjoys on top.

There are plenty more GoT filming locations in NI, but sadly we did not get the time for them, so our advice is to plan for a bit of a longer trip to NI, not just for the location hunting, but because it is all so stunning to see… just make sure you carry an umbrella and keep checking the weather forecast as it changes from minute to minute.  Enjoy!