Glascow & Belfast

 

After leaving Iceland we had a day at sea before arriving in Glasgow.  First thing we saw was a submarine in the harbor. It was both cool and a little concerning to see a submarine patrolling.  Obviously, it was at the surface.

The excursion for the day was to see the Lochs (basically a lake that can be either salt or fresh water) of Scotland.  The scenery was very beautiful.  

This is a Castle Invererary across Loch Fyne.  The 13^th Duke of Argyle is in residence there.  He is also the keeper of the keys to the Queen’s Scottish residence.  I guess he is an important dude!

This road was built in the 1740’s and of course, they are still working on it!  Construction is universal really!

The little houses had beautiful flowers, everything in bloom!

We saw a church with graveyard in Loss.  The oldest tombstone that I could read had a death in 1799.  There were many older ones that were illegible. 

One more Loch.

Next day was Belfast, Northern Ireland.  We did not have a tour scheduled so Carsten and I took a bus into town and hooked up with a free walking tour and it was EXCELLENT!  We had the best tour guide and learned a lot about the history of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Belfast.  Wonderful!

The Crown Saloon.  This saloon used to be called the Railway Inn.  It was not terribly prosperous until the (Catholic) owner hired the Italian workers who were in town to build the Cathedral to renovate his pub. [sort of an early HGTV thing].  Once renovated his (Protestant) wife said that such a magnificent pub needed a great name.  She suggested “The Crown”.  This did not sit well with this Irish-Catholic man but he decided to make his wife happy and agreed to the name.  He even had the name of the pub and a replica of the Queen’s crown placed in tile at the entry to the pub.  Little did his wife know that this was so that every time one of his fellow countrymen entered the pub they could wipe their feet on the crown.  We had a pint in the pub before heading on our way.

This Big Fish was installed near the river to commemorate the return of the salmon to the river.  They built a new dam/weir to help clean up the river.  It worked and the river is cleaner and the salmon have returned after a 200 year absence.

The Protestants held all the positions of authority by 1630 and they decided that no pubs could be on the main roads in the town.  They were teetotalers of course.  As a result, every alley way in Belfast has at least one or two pubs.  This was a super cool alleyway we went down.  The oldest pub in Belfast, White Pub, was opened in 1630.

The Titanic was built in Belfast.  They have kind of leaned-into this fact in recent years (I suspect since the popularity of the movie).  There is a “Titanic Experience” that you can tour.  We decided not to do that, but we did see the Titanic Memorial.  The names of all those lost at sea are found at the memorial.

City Hall.

Stay tuned.  Wales and Ireland are coming up next!

Sheri & Carsten