Northern Ireland - March 12 to 14

We spent last weekend in Northern Ireland having got some relatively cheap Ryanair (£40 each return including all charges and taxes) tickets to Belfast. This is despite me having said I would never fly Ryanair again! Although you really do feel like a herd of cattle, it was only a 50 min flight and Ryanair flies into Belfast City airport which is only a 10 minute (£2 bus ride on route 600) to the city centre. Easyjet flights were about the same price but they currently fly into the International terminal which is about 45 minutes out of town, though I think they may be switching to the city terminal later in the year. Just something to watch if you’re heading to Belfast.

We met at Stansted airport straight from work. Me on the Stansted Express (quite expensive at £16 one-way, and that’s at a £2 discount if you book online at least a day ahead) along with hundreds of other people jetting off after work and lots of groups of guys heading off for their “Stag Dos”. They’re not Bucks parties over here... Matt had driven and parked in the long-term parking, which again, is significantly cheaper if you can book a couple of weeks in advance. It was certainly a lot cheaper than my ride on the Stansted Express! We had a whole ½ hour to spare before our flight so had time for a quick drink at the Stansted Wetherspoons.

We stayed at the Europa Hotel, which I discovered after booking has the great reputation of being the most bombed hotel in Europe. It’s meant to be one of the best hotels in Belfast, though we got a great deal on Booking.com (perhaps now I know why!) so didn’t pay the price! (We always use this site and hotels.com. Hotels offer different discounts on the sites at different times so it’s always worth checking both). After checking in around 9pm and immediately managing to lock our passports and cash in the safe without resetting the pincode, oops, we headed downstairs for dinner. It was “ok”. There wasn’t actually a lot nearby in the way of food that looked open, but the dessert was absolutely yummy.... choc vanilla crème brulee mmm !!

On the Saturday we headed out on a 1 day Paddywagon tour to the Giants Causeway and L/Derry. This a really good value trip (£18 each), particularly if you’ve only got a couple of days in Northern Ireland. While it is a little rushed in parts, you do squeeze a lot into the day. We left Belfast about 9am and headed straight for the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge. It was kind of billed as this really wonky rope bridge over a gap between 2 islands that was used by salmon fisherman to get out to the best spots. They’ve obviously done it up a bit since those ‘old times’ cause even I, who is a bit scared of heights, had absolutely no trouble with it! The bus driver did have stories of people who had had complete melt downs on the bridge or who had got over but wouldn’t come back the other way... So I wouldn’t go there thinking you’re going to have an adrenalin-filled experience, unless you’re really bad with heights. But I would recommend it for the views. Really stunning. We could see all the way across to Scotland! We spent about an hour there, it’s a 1km walk from the gate to the bridge, with some quite step steps in places, so that’s probably the minimum amount of time you would want stay there. I imagine it would get quite busy in Summer too and there may be queues to cross the bridge. NB: Entry of £4.90 per adult is not included in the paddywagon tour price.

From here we jumped back on the bus and headed along the coast to the Giants Causeway where we stopped for 1.5 hours. We were quite blessed with the weather. It was relatively cool and a little windy, but it didn’t rain! So we took the longer walking route across the top of the bay, then down some steps to the causeway itself. The story goes that the steps were started on both sides of the waterway by 2 giants, Fionn McCool on the Ireland side and Benandonner on the Scottish side so that they could meet for a fight. One was tricked into thinking the other was a larger giant than he actually was and retreated back to the other side smashing the stones as they went (I’ll leave anyone who’s visiting the area to work out the story). I was expecting to see stepping stones out to sea, but they’re all actually small hexagonal stones connected to each other, all pretty similar in size and shape. Really unique and different, but not quite living up to what I had built in my imagination! The scientists explanation of the rock formations being a result of volcanic activity probably makes more sense unfortunately.

After our long walk (combining the Rope Bridge we had now walked about 6km today... Pretty good for us!) we went into the pub for our Irish stew, which we had been advised by our driver to order before we went for our walk. It was really yummy... as was the Guinness we enjoyed with it! We had about 30 mins to eat... those that came in about 15 minutes after us must have wolfed it down!

I actually slept a bit on our drive from the Giants Causeway to Londonderry/Derry. A combination of the full warm lunch and the sun in my face... Luckily we had headed back inland so wasn’t missing too much scenery! The driver did explain quite a bit about the history of Northern Ireland. Really quick on the older stuff and spent more time talking about the more recent ‘troubles’. I didn’t appreciate how tense relations between the 2 groups still were in some areas. In some towns, the gutters are still painted in various colours denoting which side they support. The “London” in Londonderry is blacked out on a lot of signs. And as we drove through one town, a guy walking along the street made some ‘gestures’ towards our very green bus.

We didn’t have a lot of time in Derry. We got dropped off near where the Bloody Sunday events occurred and walked around looking at all the murals and memorials. It feels like a really dreary, unwelcoming place... didn’t feel unsafe but it’s just such a contrast to the beautiful Irish countryside that we’d just driven through. I say I didn’t feel unsafe, but just this week there were a string of bomb alerts in central Derry... mmm. We caught the end of the Ireland v Wales 6 Nations game before jumping on the bus back to Derry.

It was a long day, but the driver had pointed out some of the best bars/pubs in Belfast.... 2 of which were right across the road so had to give them a go, even though we’re getting old and don’t go out late anymore! The Crown is really decorative with lots of booths.. a great place to enjoy a couple of pints. Next door at Robinsons the music is a bit more lively and through the back there’s this pub called Fibber Magees which has quite good Irish music. But being a Saturday night, and just after the Irish had won the rugby, the place was absolutely jammed... couldn’t move! So we spent most of the evening with a couple of pints and a meal at the Crown!

On our 2nd and last day in Belast, we did one of the Belfast Black Cab tours, which took us round all the key areas to do with ‘the troubles’ in Belfast. Again, neither of us were really expecting a huge wall to still be up between the Catholic and Protestant areas, let alone hear that the gates still get locked each evening. We didn’t see any trouble whatsoever, and I think most people just want to live their lives peacefully, but as our driver said, still too soon for the wall to come down. There’s still some tension and at the moment the wall just takes the edge off any risk of that spilling over into violence. It was a really interesting tour and well worth doing if you’re in Belfast. It’s only £25 for the cab and lasts about 1 to 1.5 hours, depending how many questions you ask!

Nothing opens in Belfast until 1pm on a Sunday so wasn’t much left to do while we hung around and waited for our flight back to Stansted. Just enjoyed a coffee and checked out the view from the top of the Victoria Shopping Centre. All in all Belfast's a fantastic place to go to get away from the rat race that is South-East England for a while!