Tuesday July 1 Belfast
We set out at 9 am on an eight hour tour to Dunluce Castle and the Giants Causeway. The bus was full and we had a good (Catholic) guide, Adrian who spoke for almost the whole journey that was quite biased and did a lot towards American connections of Ulster; There was also a driver Alan with whom David chatted quite a lot. We first had a photo stop along the Antrim Coast and then stopped at Dunluce for about an hour in gorgeous weather. It was odd that we did not cover much of the Antrim Coast Road, instead driving north from Belfast by the inland road, and not touching the coast until we were almost at the Giants Causeway
Then onto the Royal Court Hotel, a fairly modern three star hotel overlooking the 18th green of Royal Portrush, where the British Open was about to be staged in two weeks time,. The roast beef lunch was not too bad and this was followed by a huge potion of Pavlova. We wandered around outside for some time here.
We eventually got to the Giants Causeway at 2:15 and had two hours there Which seemed too short, but we managed okay. We took the coastal cliff footpath from the visitor Centre and then went down steep flights of stairs before arriving at the giant's organs, most impressive. Then back at low level towards the visitor centre to where the main part of the Giants Causeway existed. David persuaded me to climb over some of these basalt rocks and it was very peaceful sitting down there. Then back along the almost 1 mile path to the visitor Centre where we had a salted caramel ice cream.
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Dunluce Castle
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Lunch at the Royal Court Hotel. Middle of the road mass catering. Indicative of Silverseas desire to cut costs.
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And finally the Giants Causeway
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We arrived back at the ship at 5:45 pm and managed to pack one suitcase before 6,30 when there was an end of cruise party up on deck: This was far too noisy as usual and not really worth visiting, but we had some champagne there and listen to the speeches. Then back to the suite and the rest of the packing was soon finished and we went up to the Panorama Lounge for our last portion of canapes and cocktails. Then we sat outside there in the very pleasant evening sun watching the planes going into Belfast's George Best airport and wondering at the quantity of coal along the docksides.
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After supper in the Terrassa, we returned to the suite and put the suitcases outside and then went back to the panorama lounge for an Irish whiskey and a couple of my marzipans .