Northern Ireland (08-20-19)

After 3 very enjoyable weeks in Scotland, it was time to fly off to Belfast. Our flight was at 7 am, which meant getting up at 4:30 to get to the airport on time. 

The morning was a tad stressful- security took longer than we expected-as did getting our baggage checked in. Looking up at the board to see what gate we needed to get to, we saw our flight was flashing “final boarding”. 

Ugh. Mike and Julie had gone ahead of us, so Paul and I had to sprint to the gate. At least we made it!

The flight was only 35 minutes,barely time to catch our breath.

We had booked a cottage at the beach for 3 nights, and thoroughly enjoyed walking the beach collecting sea glass in our spare time.

Our plan for our first day completely fell apart, as we all know sometimes happens. We piled in the car to take a scenic drive along the coast, with our first stop being a rope bridge that connects an island with the mainland.

Or, I assume that's what it is. When we arrived we discovered that use of the bridge is a timed entry system, and the earliest we could cross it was in almost two hours.








We decided to leave it to the thousands of other tourists who were waiting their turn. Continuing our drive, we arrived at Giant's Causeway- a natural, seaside rock formation. Or, I assume it is. It was so packed with people that they were shuttling people in from a parking lot 2 miles away. Again, we passed.

Just a little further down the road we stopped for lunch at a beachfront seafood restaurant and planned our next move while we ate fish and chips.  

It turns out that it was the site of some filming for Game of Thrones.

Decision made, we left the coast to drive up to Glenariff Forest Park and walk one of the trails.

The reviews of the waterfall there call it spectacular- I guess everything is relative- but we enjoyed the walk, anyway.

Part of the reason we wanted to visit the Belfast area is because some of Paul's ancestors lived here in the 1800s, so he and I explored on our own the following day, while Mike and Julie explored one of the oldest pubs in the area.







We were looking to find either grave sites or whatever records we could get at the archives, but had no luck.

Area where Paul's ancestors lived

We did find the area where they lived, and noticed that in this area, many of the towns begin with “Bally”: Ballynure, Ballycastle, Ballygalley etc. It turns out that Bally means “place of” -so sort of like a town but not quite.

Originally our plan was to head northwest to visit another area of Northern Ireland but we decided its too far to drive for just two days, so we are headed to the Republic of Ireland sooner than planned (Northern Ireland is part of the UK, The Republic of Ireland is not).