For our first two days in Ireland we stayed at a University dorm, a beautiful old building where they teach Educators and make a little extra for the school by renting out the dorms to travellers!
Today we took a Paddywagon tour north through Belfast to the Dark Hedges and all the way to the north coast and the Giants Causeway.
The Dark Hedges are a long tree tunnel that in full leaf in the summer are much more dramatic than my pictures show and was used as the Kings Road in Game of Thrones!
The Giants Causeway is an incredible area of ancient lava formations of more than 40,000 basalt columns! Legend has it that the Giant Finn McCool built it as a bridge to Scotland where another giant lived that he wanted to beat up, however when he saw the other guy, he was a lot bigger and so he ran back to Ireland chased by the Scottish giant. Finn's wife tricked the other giant, by wrapping Finn in a diaper and inviting the Scottish Giant in for tea. Seeing "Finn's Baby" he surmised that Finn must be Gigantic and the Scottish Giant ran back to Scotland and destroying most of the bridge behind him.
~~ Guest entry by Joan
On our way back to Dublin we stopped in Belfast for an hour. Looked for a post box to mail postcards for Christian, Will and Anna. We met a lovely Canadian lady in a coffee shop, she was from Montreal. Finally! Everyone we meet asks us if we are from Montreal.
While in Belfast we went to the Titanic Memorial. Seeing the names of all who perished was quite a sobering sight. The 3 White Star ships, Olympic Class were the Olympic (1911), Titanic (1912), and Britannic (1914). The Titanic sunk on it's maiden voyage in 1912 and the Britannia sunk in 1916 after hitting a mine layed by a submarine. The Olympic had a 24 year career (according to Wikipedia) and was retired in 1935.
