Rather, the one that guided our tour to the Giant’s Causeway yesterday does. I elaborate since, right now, we’re on a different bus, one that is currently on a trajectory towards Dublin Airport.
I apologize for not writing the post few days. We were remarkably occupied while visiting Belfast and it’s surrounding areas, and came home each night tired, yet still in need of planning. At that time, writing did not take priority over sleep.
There are really only two days of note on our Belfast adventure, and they are Monday and Tuesday. On the first day, we went exploring around the city, which meant visiting the City Hall and the Continental Market in front of it, seeing the Titanic Quarter, and walking around the city center in general. While in the City Hall, we managed to unintentionally get a security guard in trouble when he failed to tell us we weren’t allowed to go into a restricted area that wasn’t marked off in any way. It wasn’t our fault. Really. He looked right at us as we went up a giant staircase.
Shame, mister security man. Shame.
The Continental Market was also a fun experience, though come armed with cash if you plan to buy anything. There were offerings of hot food, dry sausages, clothes, leather notebooks (which I loved)… All for more expensive than elsewhere, but pretty and fun in any case.
The Titanic Quarter amounted to nothing more than a nice walk, though they did have many signs up recounting the history of the ship’s construction, the people involved, and it’s demise. The Titanic studios building was took expensive to enter and see what it was all about, but from what I understand, they have the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones there. If your willing to spend 18 GBP to see that, go for it.
Slight amendment to the setting of the real time story. We have moved from a bus headed to Dublin, and are now in a car bound for Galway. We ran the numbers, and it turns out that public transport is so expensive in the Republic of Ireland, that it’s worth it to rent a car. Go figure.
Back to Belfast. On Tuesday, we bought two bus tour tickets through our hostel, which meant we got a special rate of 16 GBP for a full day. We were picked up from the front door of the hostel, and set off almost straightaway, with one or two stops to pick up more people before leaving Belfast. Or guys drove us around of the few touristy places, including a castle, a location where some scenes from Game if Thrones are filmed, and Bushmill’s Distillery (which is the oldest licensed distiller of Irish whiskey in the world. Also, we learned that the major difference between types of whiskey is number of distillations. American, once; Scottish, twice; Irish, thrice). We ended the day at the Giant’s Causeway, a large rock plateau, consisting of hexagonal columns that make it look like honeycomb. It looks like the landscape on a computer game with very bad resolution. The scientific reason behind it has something to do with volcanoes, but the Irish will have you believe that giants had everything to do with it. Look it up, boys and girls, it’s amusing.
Final amendment to real time location. We are now in Kinlay House Galway, our hostel for the next three nights. It’s shaping up to look really nice, though updates will follow.
Our last hostel, Arnie’s Backpackers, was a bit small and very cozy, but those are two of the reasons we really enjoyed it. Yesterday I got to meet Arnie’s dogs, who reminded me if my own doggy, Frodo, and made me miss home a little bit. We also made friends with some of the longtimers and hostel workers, and had a very enjoyable time over a Guinness last night. The hostel was warm, clean and affordable, which is all I can ask. Definitely recommended for anyone in Belfast looking for a proper hostel experience.
For now, though, we’re off to figure out this new city and, now that I think about it, new country. Cheers!
Wandering Owl 