The Road to Belfast and the Walled City

We left Inch house at 7 am on Thursday morning to drive up and around the Atlantic Coast in a long drive to get to Belfast. We originally had a lot planned for Thursday and sadly our professor cut the day down so that we only had 2 stops instead. The first stop we made was at Dunluce Castle which is also known as Harrenhall to Game of Thrones’ fans (thanks Hunter and Ashley for giving me the names of all the Game of Thrones places we went). It was beautiful, but sadly not open because it’s not quite the tour season. We got to take lots of pictures and enjoy the view, and even went down to a cove called “Mermaid’s Cave” that used to connect up to the castle. Next we drove past Bushmill’s Whiskey Distillery (which was originally on our schedule and the oldest whiskey distillery in Europe) and to the Giant’s Causeway. We walked down past the visitor center and straight to the causeway hearing stories of the giants that made it. We had about an hour to walk around and explore the geological wonder and take photos before loading back onto the bus. We then passed up the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge which I also had been looking forward to going on since before the trip, but I guess this gives me something to come back to Ireland for. We drove onto Belfast and checked into our hostel for the night. And of course I immediately looked for a Mexican restaurant as Ashley and I have been craving it again, and we found a place with burritos that made my mouth water. This was probably one of the first time in months that Mexican food made my mouth burn and my lips tingle with that familiar spice and flavor! So good!

Dunluce Castle

A view of Giant's Causeway

Chilling at the top of one of the formations

View of the ocean and the causeway

The hexagonal pattern of the causeway 

Friday we had an eventful day starting at 10 with a trip to a design firm called The Design Factor to get shown around and spoken to by William Lee, the man who founded the company. His talk was very interesting and I was really glad that we took the time to stop there. Next we had the quickest lunch ever, like honestly running in an out of a KFC, to catch our Black Taxi Tour which was too soon after The Design Factor. We got to drive around Belfast with our driver, Jerry, and he pointed out places in Belfast with importance like the Europa hotel, the most bombed building in Europe since WWII which was carried out by the IRA, and the Crown Bar which is the oldest bar in Belfast. We stopped at the Peace walls that have a eerie way about them similar to the Berlin Wall to look at murals that change up to every 6 weeks to reflect new problems or highlight triumphs. There are 22 walls around the city with 7 gates that close and open during business hours in the week, and 2 of those gates don’t even open on the weekends. The largest peace wall is around 5 km long which is crazy to me. We stopped to sign one of the walls, which is the only legal place for graffiti in the world. They did, in fact, take pictures from what the Berlin Wall looked like and repainted it on this wall and have it available for visitors to sign so that it could maybe come down one day like the Berlin Wall. I hope it comes down so that the insane segregation stops, and maybe all those signatures will be worth something.

The building for The Design Factor

One of the walls covered in murals

Writing on the Peace Wall

Posing with my signature 

Next we got dropped off at the Titanic Museum which is a beautiful building at the very north of town. The building itself is supposed to represent either the boughs of a ships, the iceberg that the Titanic hit, or a star in honor of White Star Lines, the company that the Titanic was under. The museum itself was interesting but not what I was expecting at all! At this museum we started with the building of the ship as Belfast was the city where Titanic was built before going to sea. Then to the shock to everyone on our trip there is actually a ride in the museum that takes you through the ship-building experience! It was fun like the E.T. ride that takes you up and down through a bunch of screens and a voice walking you through the process. We went through 2 more floors exploring how the rooms would have been actually set up for each class of people, what supplies the Titanic had aboard (I didn’t realize they had to bring all the linen possible because they had no way to wash it and actually how much mail it was holding as a Royal Mail ship), and the survivor stories. The telegraphs that Titanic last sent certainly put a chill up my spine, and the tour on a huge screen of the wreckage kept it there. The museum even has a part where you can stand on screens above the debris field that makes you feel like you are swimming above it, way cool. We finished off the exhibitions and walked to the nearest train station to take us down back to where our hostel was. 

The Titanic Museum in Belfast

A group of us posing in the sign

           Saturday was a free day for us, so after a lazy morning we decided to go the city center to see the town hall and check out the shopping. After realizing how expensive going from the euro to the pound is, we quickly gave up shopping to retreat back to the hostel only to get stuck in hail again. We have a huge sketching assignment due on Monday, so a lot of us hunkered down to get most of that done before dinner. I hit a snag when my mom let me know that my card was being used in California, so she and I figured out a way that I could get money for the trip with as little trouble as possible (with her doing most of the heavy lifting on the task and I just listened). With that all settled our group dinner was right around the corner at the Europa hotel. We didn’t get bombed, no worries. We did have a 3-course meal that was typical of fancy restaurants, that being that the courses were extremely small but at the end of dinner I felt full. We were going to go out that night, but the assignment that we have and the cost in pounds deterred us.

           Today we are taking a train back into Dublin, where we are staying for 2 days and then taking a plane over to Italy for an international furniture fair in Milan(!!!) and a day trip to Venice! I’m super excited to both be going back to Dublin and back to Italy where I have been to Venice, but not Milan. We have some great plans for the limited time we are there, but I think what everyone is looking forward to most, collectively as a group at least, is that we don’t have to wear layers in Italy. It’s actually warm there! I’ll tell you all about it soon!