Doug sits on a Throne of LIES!
Ok, not really.
It's just an oversized size wooden chair outside of the restaurant that the tour uses for lunch, just prior to entering the Giant Causeway.
Yes, we had left the confines of the beautiful confines of the Irish Republic, and had begun touring the Northern Republic.
This could be a picture of Belfast. I'm not 100% sure, but that where its sequenced in my phone camera "roll".
I admit. I was a little out of it by the time we hit Belfast. So it was a bit of fog to me. I didn't get many pictures.
It was one of the grittier cities we visited. It felt like working-class Britain as much as it did Ireland. The song "Come On, Eileen" kept running through my head.
Pounds relaced Euros. Ketchup became harder to find (sorry - I'm a ketchupaholic). It didn't rain, except for a brief sprinkle, but things were not as bright and sunny as they were in the Irish Republic.
This may be Queen's University in Belfast. I', pretty sure it is. Well, one building of it. Paige went to school here for a year or so.
It's interesting that American students can often travel abroad, and find school cheaper here than in the states, even factoring in the cost of travel.
America has to do something about its exploding and prohibitive college costs, and the devastating, crippling loans many are taking out to pay for it. Whatever's done will probably not occur while Benjamin's in college, but for the sake of future generations, it needs to be done.
Our first full day in Northern Ireland was another bus tour. Once you got out of Belfast, the scenery was as breathtaking as it was in the Irish Republic.
One of our first stops was to a castle. This would be our third and final castle visit of the trip.
As you can see, another beautiful coastline. Cliffs not quite as spectacular as the Cliffs of Mohr, but impressive nonetheless.
The highlight of the day was a trip to the Giants Causeway. This is the area as described in Wikipedia:
The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (4.8 km) northeast of the town of Bushmills.
This is a picture of the columns. Natural formation! Like God was playing with his own Mega-Blocks.
Alison sits on a throne of LIES!
Okay, not really.
There were parts of the Giants Causeway that were climbable. We and about a thousand of our friends enjoyed doing that.
One of the biggest busts of the trip was the so-called Dark Hedges, a tree-lined street where the tree limbs extended across the road and almost interlocked with the tree on the other side. Having seen some of the peach tree-lined streets near Macon and Central Georgia, we were not overwhelming impressed.
Much of where we visited in Northern Ireland were locations used for the television series Game of Thrones. That included the Dark Hedges, which, I imagine, with the right time of day and the careful use of photography and effects, could look quite impressive. Just not so much at 4 O'Clock in the afternoon.
Beleive it or not, this is the second to last blog story about our Ireland vacation. The series wraps up with...
THE DUBLIN PROPOSAL!
Posting soon to a Strait Line Blog near you!
Awesome pictures!
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