Northern Ireland
Trip Start
May 25, 2008
1
23
54
Trip End
May 25, 2009
Ballymena,
United Kingdom
Thursday, July 31, 2008
We've just been scooting around Ballymena and the surrounds, and made a day trip to Derry via the Sperrin Mountains which was highly enjoyable. The Sperrins are gorgeous, you just feel like you haven't a care in the world while you're driving through there. Rolling green hills that look more perfect than any watercolour painting could ever depict them, white ponies grazing and frolicking in the lush wild grass, abandoned grey stone cottages and stone walls in varying states of disrepair and neglect, old men in red tractors tipping their tweed hats as you pass them on the secluded laneways...what a perfect start to my holiday with my parents :)
Derry was somewhere I had been before and suggested to my parents would be a good day out. We were only planning to spend a couple of hours there, but after wandering around the walls and visiting the little cafes that lined them, decided to make a day of it. We wandered through the markets, grungy cafes along the walls, visited the famous murals, and had one of the most splendid days out of the trip.
Went to stay with my aunty in Belfast and had a personal 'Black Cab' tour with her. She drove us to an area where she encountered a bus being firebombed and in flames in the middle of the road, and also where she did her first teaching assignment at a High School to the sound of explosions and gunfire in the background. We drove along Falls and Shankill Roads and explored their powerful murals.
We then had lunch at an American Pub and then went to the Crown Liquor Saloon, a pub which has the dubious title of 'most bombed pub in Ireland during the Troubles'.
Absolutely amazing tangible history here, reminded me a little of Berlin with the wall...of course Belfast has their own version of that, the so called 'Peace Wall', which still has its graffitied check points and scorch marks from being firebombed. The areas between the roads are creepy, a kind of desolate no-mans land.
There are so many great cafes, pubs and restaurants to visit (with all the locally grown farm produce you just can't run out of options!), and the bars and nightlife are amazing.
I love Belfast, it's so gritty and defiant, yet at the same time such a welcoming and friendly city that I'm sure will be flooded with tourists in years to come.
Ballymena Town Emblem
But I hope not for a while ;) 
