Besides learning more about northern Ireland, another reason we wanted to come up to Belfast was for its proximity to the Giants Causeway https://www.ireland.com/en-ca/amazing-places/giants-causeway, a UNESCO world heritage site with 40,000 hexagonal-shaped basalt pillars created by volcanoes 60 million years ago.
This morning we met a day tour at 9:45 at the Europa hotel (famous for being glamourous but also for being the most bombed hotel in Belfast) and took off on a daylong drive.
Our tour first took us to the Dark Hedges apparently of Game of Thrones fame (here’s the video, Mom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=140&v=zsftoWJ4S-k) and a 300-year-old rope bridge
(I’m no more a rope bridge walker than I am a Game of Thrones watcher although I’m much more open to television).
Our tour day was a bit wet (okay, a lot wet) but it was nice again to see some spectacular natural landscape. Our day on the bus ended with a photo stop by Dunluce Castle, first built in the 13th century and now a ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunluce_Castle
At the end of the day we visited the Crown Liquor Saloon started in 1826 and noted here as “Belfast’s most famous bar” https://visitbelfast.com/partners/crown-liquor-saloon/ to take pictures and then went to the less famous but also less crowded Brennan’s bar https://visitbelfast.com/partners/brennans-bar/ just down the street for a meal of Irish meat pies and Guinness and cider.