Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Beautiful Ireland

I had a fantastic trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. After an all night flight from LAX to LHR, it was just a short flight to Belfast. There I got a taxi to Newcastle. As the taxi rounded the corner here was my first view of the hotel: the Slieve Donard. Nigel had already been there for 4 days for a meeting.What a beautiful place it was.

Our room looked over the sea. It had this plaque:


Belfast was only 45 minutes away, so the next day we went to the Titanic museum. It was done really well. Below is the exact spot where the Titanic sailed off.


After another day, we left the UK and moved on to Dublin where we visited stone circles and castles along the way. In Dublin we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, of course and toured the Potato famine museum. We spent the next day on the Grand canal on a canal boat.

The Cathedral was quite impressive

 The filling of the lock.


On our way again.

The Cliffs of Moher are impressive. Probably most establishment shots of Ireland are of these cliffs. It was a bit overcast and rainy - what a surprise, so the picture isn't that great.


Seeing these from a boat is a great way to see how massive these cliffs are.

We wandered around the Republic of Ireland and then headed up the other side of Northern Ireland to Londonderry, which is now mainly called Derry. It's still a very political area.
This is the Peace Bridge that opened in 2011

The Devil's Causeway is amazing. If you notice in this picture, the stones are either 5, 6 or 7 sided and all fit together.



 People were climbing everywhere

The last place in Norther Ireland was the Dark Hedges. Since I've not seen Game of Thrones, we went there because the photo we saw of them was very cool. I guess if I ever watch Game of Thrones, I'll recognize them.


Good bye Ireland