After the cruise, we continued on to Glasgow. Now, I'm going to put in here that it has been a mission of several members of our group to find some highland cows. Thus far, we have been unsuccessful despite driving all over the highlands. HOWEVER!! There is Pollack Park in Glasgow where a herd of highland cows are free to roam (in huge enclosed areas). Of course this is a tourist destination, but it's also just a nice place to take a walk. So our gracious bus driver drove through for us. And not a single highland cow was in sight of the driving path!! We were devastated!
So with crushed spirits, we then made our way to Kelvingrove Museum in the middle of Glasgow. We were given some time for lunch before the tour and our small group went to Mother India where we had Indian tapas! We tried four different kinds of Indian dishes, some samosas, and naan.
Once we'd finished, there was enough time to walk through the ground floor of the museum where the natural history section was. Our tour was on the second floor where the art was. It included a sampling of art from a variety of artists and heavily featured Scottish artists and history.
Our tour then continued on the bus and we drove around Glasgow to learn of the city's history and importance in relation to Scottish trade, in particular tobacco imported from the USA. The city is much more industrial than other places we've been so far, even compared to London! And it was a little difficult to navigate because the first ever world cycling championships are happening now resulting in many blocked off roads. So we just got off the bus to walk a bit and eventually made our way to St. Mungo's Cathedral (aka Glasgow Cathedral) first built in the twelfth century!
Our city tour ended there and we drove to our hotel. Many of us needed to refresh by this time as it was close to 5pm and we'd been traveling on and off the bus all day. Our hotel was in the city center near George Square. It was a very modernist hotel with small rooms, but the shower was my favorite one so far!
After a little refresher, some of our group met up with our tour director, David, to go for a walk around the city center. We found the famous Duke of Wellington who always has a traffic cone on his head! Police used to take it off, but the cone would be quickly replaced by someone brave enough to climb up the statue. Currently, the duke also has a spiderman mask on as well as the cone. Other members of our group caught an Uber back to Pollack Park for another chance at spotting Highland cows. We went on the walk, but I did hear a report back that the group who went cow hunting were successful! (I'll include a picture sent to me below.)
For dinner, David recommended a restaurant called The Ivy. We found it easily and got a table. We should have known it was a pretty fancy place when the guy showing us to our table was wearing a full suit and bowtie. We were seated in a back corner (probably because we were wearing jeans and sweatshirts). We ordered wine and selected our food. My meal was a split pea soup with lentil and thistle salad for a starter and wild mushroom linguini in cream sauce. Another indicator of the fanciness was that the waiter poured my soup into the bowl for me at the table. We also had full place settings with different silverware for different courses. The food was delicious! But a little too spendy for every day dining.
We ended the night with a little adventure. First we restocked our snack supply at a nearby Tesco Express and then proceeded to walk 20 minutes in the wrong direction. We thought we were going to the right place, because we'd looked it up on Google Maps, but it turns out there's two Ibis Hotels in "central" Glasgow. We made it all the way to the wrong one before figuring it out. By this point, it was fully night, the night time party people were out, and my legs hurt from all the walking. So we ordered an Uber and got a safe ride home! Thus ended the mini adventure!
The next morning (Aug. 10th) was another early day because we needed to catch the ferry to Northern Ireland! The ferry leaves from a small port called Cairnryan, which was a little over an hour drive south of Glasgow. The drive was filled with more beautiful Scottish landscapes, but eventually we had to say goodbye to Scotland.
The ferry ride was two and a half hours over the Sea of Ireland. Luckily it was smooth sailing and we had some downtime to just sit and relax. However, if we had wanted to, there was a small casino, a movie theater, a bar, and a restaurant just to name a few amenities available.
Once we docked in Belfast, we gathered our luggage and sound our new bus driver, an Irish man named Declan. He brought us to our hotel in central Belfast. Our hotel didn't quite have our rooms ready yet, so David took us on a walking tour around central Belfast. We were within blocks of city hall, Victoria Square shopping center, and the notorious Europa hotel which has the unfortunate reputation of being the most bombed hotel in Europe (thanks to the Troubles).
Afterwards, we were able to get into our rooms and we took a moment to rest before headed down for a group dinner in the hotel restaurant. After dinner, a small group of us went down the street to Brennans' Bar for a drink and to listen to the live music.
Our final day in Belfast (Aug. 11) was a busy one. We started out with a city tour first thing in the morning from a local guide who doubles as a high school teacher in the off season. She was very knowledgable about Belfast and wasn't afraid to dive into the political history. We learned of the divide between Catholics (Nationalists) and Protestants (Unioninsts) and of the Good Friday agreement that stopped the violence between the two groups. We also visited a section of the peace wall and were encouraged to write a message of peace on it. It might be cheesy, but I wrote lyrics from John Lennon's song, Imagine.
You may think I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
Someday I hope you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
After the tour, we were dropped off at the Titanic Exhibit. The building is massive. It is a five pointed star that, when looked at from above, looks like the White Star logo, and each point when looked at from below looks like the bow of the ship.
Inside, the exhibit is an immersive experience that starts you off with learning about Belfast in the early 1900s and how ship building was important to the city almost as much as linen weaving. Then the exhibt takes you into a "ship yard" and you have the option to ride on a cart through that part of the exhibit. Megan and I did and it was really cool!
Then it starts to focus on Titanic. You get to learn of the ship, how impressive it was for its day, and what the people were like who boarded it.
Eventually, you come to the sinking and the exhibit literally gets darker. Everything is lit with cool blue lights and there are sounds of the first class quartet playing over the speakers. There is also a corner that shows pictures and stories of the "heroes of Titanic", people who tried to save others and did their best to put human life first.
Finally, you come to a massive wall displaying all of the names of those who perished. It is immensely impactful seeing all of those names, especially when you see long lists of people with the same last name (entire families all dying together).
The exhibit ended with a circular room, a spiral staircase slowly bringing you down to a floor that looked like a glass bottom boat. Projectors lit the walls with infographics, pictures, and artists renditions of the ship and people. Music swells through the room, bringing joy and optimism that slowly fades to tragic despair. There were some artifacts - a fur coat, a deck chair, a pocket watch - retrieved from the wreck and put on display. Click here to see a 1 minute video of the final room.
Walking outside afterwards was disorienting after being so immersed in the exhibit. The sun and fresh air almost felt inappropriate. However, we took a moment to have lunch outside and reacclimate to the sun and salty air of Belfast.
The afternoon was another adventure of a different kind. We drove north to the Giant's Causeway. Fun fact, it is the windiest place in Ireland! It is also possible to see Scotland to the north east on a clear day as it is only about ten miles away at that point.
We walked through the visitor's center and down the path to the causeway, taking in the dramatic cliffs and steep green hills. There were many tourists here, so it was difficult to get pictures without a dozen or more people in the frame. Luckily, Google photos let's me magically erase people, so you get to enjoy a few people-less pictures!
The hexagonal stones create natural steps for people to climb all over and that is exactly what most people were doing. I did not feel comfortable climbing all over because of the steep drops in some areas and the slippery rocks in others, so I found a perch near the top of one of the hills and settled in to enjoy the people watching and amazing views.
Unfortunately though, one of our group members had an accident here. She slipped on one of the rocks and wound up twising an ankle, bruising a knee, spraining a wrist, and cutting open the back of her head. Luckily, she did not get a concussion and was able to walk back to the bus with some help from a medic. Unluckily, it took two hospitals and hours of waiting for her to be seen by a doctor. We're all very grateful that she will be okay.
The hour long drive back to the hotel was full of people catching small cat naps, myself included, which just meant that I was ready to go out once we got back to Belfast. Megan, Kris, and I made our customary run to Tesco to stock up on travel snacks and then we got pizza to go from Little Italy, a fast pizza place right across from our hotel claiming to have the best pizza in Belfast. It was pretty good! Our final event for the night was a return to Brennans' Bar for a drink and to listen to more live music. Because it was a Friday, the bar was far more crowded, but there was still room for people dancing! The musical group was playing some classic American songs from artists like Tina Turner, Prince, and Elvis. We only stayed for about an hour though before heading back to the hotel to pack for our next stop.
And that concludes our stay in Belfast. Stay tuned for next time when we enter the Republic of Ireland and go to Galway!
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