Day 8 - Belfast

An early wake up call, a quick brekkie of cereal & toast and we were off through the icy streets of Dublin to await our 7.45am pick up for the Belfast day trip. It was certainly frosty and perhaps the coldest temperature we had experienced…though there was no wind chill which we were certainly grateful of. It turned out there was only a small group of 7 of us on the mini bus so off we went heading north towards the border, a trip of about 2 hours.

Our driver, Steven, was quite chatty and gave us a bit of a run-down of the recent political history and peace process that has now allowed such tours from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. When we were last here in Dublin in 2008 such a trip would not have been possible, or if it was, there would have been machine gun armed soldiers in evidence at the border and in certain troubled areas. We stopped at a few of these areas and viewed murals depicting various political slogans as well as a number of memorials. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like living in such an environment, let alone being born into it and never knowing anything else.

 

We generally felt that there was a somewhat gloomier atmosphere in the north than in the republic. The architecture seems different – more British I guess (which makes sense) – and the city seemed more “povo” or “bogan” as Carly described it. The houses in Ireland (the republic) are for the most part quite new due to building incentives over the last 10 to 20 years and this may account for the difference…who knows.

 

We first made a stop at the Titanic exhibition which was very interesting – Titanic was built in Belfast and so had a great link with everything that went on both before and after its launch. While it was a great and extensive exhibition, I think the temporary one we saw in Melbourne a couple of years ago was perhaps better. Anyway, it was all good!

It was then off to Belfast city centre for a wander around – we grabbed some bagels for lunch and generally just looked at buildings, shops etc before boarding the bus at 3.15pm for our return trip. An uneventful trip back to Dublin saw us back at the hotel where we had left our luggage so we grabbed a taxi and headed off to our other hotel at Temple Bar. We had a very festive taxi driver who was typically charming and Irish, telling jokes, saying he thought we were sisters, admiring our matching luggage and generally entertaining us for the short trip. At one point a group of people tried to flag him down and he wound down the window and said “I’ll be back for you”. He then immediately said in his cute accent “As if I could ever make it back to them…but I’ll try”.

After checking in we headed out for dinner and decided a good American dinner at TGIFriday was in order…great choice – it was very yummy. All the staff were dressed in Halloween costumes and decorations abounded. This is pretty much the case all over Ireland – Halloween is very big here and this weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend so everyone was very festive. Yes, we discovered just how festive…our room overlooked the main street of Temple Bar, the main party area of Dublin, and boy, do they know how to party! We were both asleep early (I haven’t been getting much sleep – waking up at 3 or 4am most days) but were entertained throughout the night by major yahooing and general partying right up to about 4.30am. Oh well, you can’t expect anything else if you pick the party street to stay in!