Belfast and the Giant's Causeway

This past weekend, I was in Belfast. My friend Ryan and I took a 2.5hr bus ride from Dublin to get there. Belfast is much smaller than I thought it would be and much cheaper than Dublin too. I thought that Belfast would be more expensive with the sterling but it only cost 6.50£ for a bed in the hostel.

We arrived on saturday and spent the day wandering around the city. City hall is interesting because just in front of it is a big ferris wheel. I wanted to go on but it was 6£ which I felt was a little steep. After city hall, we wandered to Lagan Weir and Lookout. Here there is a statue of a giant ceramic salmon covered with tiles that tells the history of Belfast.

Belfast is also the city that gave birth to the Titanic so we walked around to where it first set sail. After dinner, we decided we wanted to stay for the night and had to call up hostels since we didn't book in advance. After checking into a cheap hostel, we went back out to wander and explore some more of the town.

The next morning, we woke early and went on a tour to see the Giant's Causeway. This place was AMAZING. Please look at the pictures as my words cannot do it justice. It is one of Northern Ireland's main attractions. The Giant's Causeway is a vast expance of regular, close packed, hexagonal stone columns. In olden times, they thought that Giant's had built this place. From here, you can see the shores of Scotland and it was said that there was a Giant from Ireland who wanted to battle the Giant from Scotland and they created the causeway to get from Ireland to Scotland. There are 2 walks and we decided to take the cliff-top path to the chimney tops.

With our tour, we also saw the 16th century Dunseveruc Castle from the outside and the spectacular White Park Bay which has wide, sweeping sandy beaches. We were supposed to walk across the famous Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge but it was closed down for the winter. It is a 20m long, 1m wide bridge of wire rope that spans the chasm between the sea cliffs and a little island.

We arrived back into Belfast around 6pm and then had to catch another bus back to Dublin. All I can say is, look at the pictures!!