We spent the day right on the edge of a hurricane or tropical storm. It wasn't too windy or dangerous, it was just very wet. We drove around a town called Londonderry or Derry. We learned the name itself is somewhat controversial. There's a lot of history there about Protestants and Catholics. If I'm not mistaken, each party has a different name for the town. There's a peace bridge there and CS Lewis was born there (or lived there, not sure without looking it up).
We wanted to go to the Ring of Guillion or the Mourne Mountains, but we decided to head into Belfast and enjoy the city. The Irish accent is fantastic, they're quite a jubilant group like the Italians. We sat next to a group drinking beer at 9am and sharing some great loud laughs, it felt quite comfortable actually, it was an inclusive laughter and conversation.
The breakfast food reminded me more of the states than it reminded me of Europe, there were sausages, toast, orange juice, bagels, etc. I did see baked beans and grilled tomatoes though, that's more European.
We drove by the main cathedral and wow you should have seen the police presence! No exaggeration there had to be at least two dozen fully armed cars, each with multiple officers. You would have thought there was a riot. Maybe we're ignorant and it wasn't safe, but the police were mostly smiling and I'm guessing that just might be their standard Sunday morning mass?
We went up to the Belfast castle, which sadly isn't much. Nice place for a wedding though. We drove past the opera house and the central market. We stumbled right upon the "titanic quarter" which is where the Titanic was built. There's a great museum, but it had a two hour wait, and our flight was about 4 hours away.
We drove to airport, had a great flight back on Easyjet and there was a full rainbow in Bristol. Perfect ending to a perfect weekend in Ireland!!
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