I said the border crossing into the UK was easy but the border crossing from Northern Ireland (UK) into the republic of Ireland (still part of the UK) was for ill intendent purposes non-existent. At some point on the highway near Killeam the road signs change from mile to kilometres and a little bit after that you see a welcome to something county, Ireland sign. In fact the easiest way to know how you have crossed the border is those annoying messages you get from your phone company when you reach a new roaming destination. The only other hint seemed to be the plethora of service stations just after you cross the border. There didn’t seem to be a huge difference in cost (although converting pounds per gallon into litres per Euro is pretty hard maths to do in your head. Galway was about a four or five hour drive so we tried to stay on more major roads, at least for the first part of the day. Having said that, we took a break in Sligo to walk around the riverside town – (most of the towns here are seaside or riverside – there are a lot of rivers in the emerald isle). Sligo has some charm about it and was a good rest stop. I am a big fan of Sunday roast and this was our last opportunity to experience it. In Ireland Sunday dinner is a lunchtime or afternoon meal, not what we traditionally refer to as dinner. And in many pubs, particularly in smaller towns, the roast is only served for lunch. With that in mind, we headed into the pub in Sligo near where we parked. I had the Sunday roast – the beef which came with potatoes (of course), veges and very good gravy. Yorkies are not really a thing in Ireland. And a pot of tea. Dan had a club sandwich. When we arrived, the waitress told us we could sit anywhere except the front table near the window, She said similar things to everyone who arrived. It turned out she had reserved that table for an elderly gentleman who comes in every Sunday for his dinner. What touched me most about this was the sense of community. There were a few more locals who came into the pub for a chat or to ask about Saint Paddy’s day while we were there. Life moves more slowly in the villages here and one of the things they seem to have kept, at least in part,  the sense of community with the pub at its heart. Of course the Irish ability to talk the leg off a chair and strike up a conversation with just about anyone might also have something to do with it. You are also forever reminded of the impact of the Irish famine wherever you go here – there was a monument to it in the middle of the carpark outside the pub.

From here we veered off the direct route a bit and headed for a drive around a loch to a castle (just like Scotland). The views weren’t quite as vast but they were still spectacular. And prettier. As we came down from a windy road, we stopped just because there was a spectacular lookout over the green valleys below. It was raining (it is Ireland after all) but that just made the skies even more spectacular. The castle (Parke’s Castle) was also worth a stop – It was closed but it (like so many others) was perched on the edge of the Loch – a ferry runs here in the warmer months *(not running today) to get people to the other side of the loch instead of what is likely a 100 k trip. We turned back at the castle and headed towards Galway. [Zombie – The Cranberries – Another track from the Irish road trip playlist. I had gone down a ska rabbithole and hadn’t bought any new music since the mid 80s until I heard The Cranberries’ Linger. That somehow led me to Belly and about a year later Rancid released Time Bomb. The Cranberries don’t make most hipster playlists but I still like them.]

Galway was really designed as a pit stop, staying in a serviced apartment so we could easily do the washing, and relax before the Irish sightseeing started in earnest. Galway itself clearly had a different idea, We got in, got parked in the hotel parking (after a detour in a public carparking tour and got the domestic duties underway and wandered into town to get some dinner. What we were greeted with was the full force of Ireland’s tourism industry. Shop after shop of Irish gifts – everything from t-shirts with terrible puns to a world of Guinness souvenirs. And quite a few jewellers advertising claddagh rings as the quintessential Irish ring originated here. And then you hit the main tourist strip =- a cross between the backpacker haven of Temple Bar – with bunting of various countries’ flags strung across the street and restaurants with Brick Lane or Venice style tout’s. Mercifully very few were holding plastic covered menus – my sure sign that the food is going to be expensive and very ordinary. Not holding out much hope, we consulted trip advisor and settled on an Italian place on the street. We hadn’t eaten Italian so far and while it was a bit on the expensive side, it was also really good. We ordered carpaccio – one of Dan’s favourites and it was really great. So too was my seafood pasta (seafood is pretty fresh most places in Ireland as you can imagine and this was no different. And the salad was amazing and just what my body was craving after all the potatoes. We went to a convenience store at the end of town and while its shelves and floor were piled high with everything you could ever need, they didn’t have washing powder. I had at least a load to go (even if I jammed the washer full as you see students do in the laundromat. In any case, what looked like a cross between an Indian grocery store and a takeaway had some washing detergent up the back. Saved. After a good night’s sleep in a (two bedroom) apartment not much smaller than our house, we headed across he river on the a littel island, seemingly the hub of Galway’s foodie scene. Despite Dan’s doubts, Ireland has an impressive foodie scene (and some places they even avoid the potatoes). Dela, a renowned Galway restaurant, was our destination and it didn’t disappoint. Firstly I decided on coffee rather than tea this morning, which turned out to be a great decision- the flat white was glorious. I had the Dela Fry – the usual, although superior ingredients cooked superbly and with the addition of freshly baked bread and relish rather than soda bread. It did still come with butter; Dan had the bacon benedict which he also rated highly and we shared the breakfast platter (so I could have the yoghurt and fruit (as well as a smattering of the house made granola) and Dan could have the scones (with homemade jam) he had been craving. We though we might have come across a tea shoppe before now but alas no. The scone craving satisfied, it was time to buy some souvenirs. I (naturally) looked in the jeweller’s for some pieces  and chos Countries e a Claddagh pendant in marquisette. I also may have found a coaster of my surname but decided that I would leave it to Dublin where I would invariably find another one, to stock up on family-based souvenirs. We headed out of Galway bound for Limerick with a visit to the Cliffs of Moher planned along the way.

Fridge Magnets – 5     Postcards – 7     T-shirts – 2   Christmas decorations – 3   Countries – 4

Limerick

Our first stop out of Galway was Athenry – principally to see the fields of Athenry – I am a big fan of the Dropkick Murphys version of this traditional Irish tune about a young man who stole corn to feed his family and was sent to Botany Bay, Australia. As it turned out, Athenry itself was pretty interesting, we walked around the Cathedral ruins and also the city walls and castle. It is amazing that city walls that are hundreds of years old just exist as a part of the typography of the town. Thefields of Athenry, however, had all area disappeared in this expanding town, with a cooki-cutter housing development going up between the freeway and the village.

From Astheny we started heading towards the Cliffs of Moher, stopping off to look at yet another castle – the Dunguaire Castle. We pulled over the side of the road and walked back for some pics. And then we headed upward on a steep- and winding road that would have been heaps of fun in the mini. And the scenery was even more pi8cxturesque than tge previous day. I do recommend going north to south in as the scenery just gets more stunning each day. As you get to the top of the plateau the trees disappear – It looks drier up here because it is slightly less green but as it turns out that has much more to do with the fact that there are peat bogs up here where the water sits. You are so high up here that the mist is settling below you. You start to head down a bit as you approach the coastline and the spectacular Cliffs of Moher.

Like so many of the tourist attractions in Ireland, the cliffs are well set up for visitors – the carpark is on the other side of the highway and you walk across to the tourist complex that is nestled into the hill. It was cold and windy so ended up being the first outing for my beanie/scarf/glove combo on this trip.

 Fridge Magnets – 5     Postcards – 8     T-shirts – 2   Christmas decorations – 3   Countries – 4

I had been fascinated with Derry long before Derry Girls hooked me in – its role during the troubles and what happened there, its proximity to the republic and its ancient walls had all made me want to visit for a long time, The Derry Girls remark that all tourists want to do when they come to  Northern Ireland is visit the Giant’s Causeway. Predictably that’s where we were headed after we picked up the hire car. We left off the first part of the tourist coastal loop in order to spend some time walking around Derry in the afternoon. We headed up one of the freeways and  pulled off to visit the Dark Hedges, which to be honest were a bit of a letdown and probably dreamed up as a tourist attraction to make sure all of the tour buses didn’t end up at the Giant’s Causeway all at once. You had to pay for parking and then walk quite a way to essentially walk up a road where the gnarled century old trees have joined across the road to make an arch. As that happens in my street at home (with 70 year old trees) it didn’t seem that spectacular. Admittedly, we visited in winter when there was no foliage but it wasn’t worth the 10 pound parking fee. And I can’t for the life of me understand why there is a hotel here and why they need acres of parking for buses.

From here we let Google direct us and we saw a few back country roads and lanes before we connected up with the main tourist drive taking us on to Dunseverick Castle, our first castle in Ireland. Or not. Three laps around the very small parking area on the edge of a village amounted to naught so we decided to keep heading towards Giant’s causeway. Parking there, unless you want to pay extra for the Causeway experience, is around a kilometre’s walk to the causeway and then a bit of a hike down the hill to the Causeway itself. I have seen pictures of course but you don’t know how mesmerising the place is going to be until you see it. Nestled in a cove where almost all the rock formations are hexagonal while the rock formations in the surrounding coves are all quite ordinary. The causeway certainly fits the bill of those tourist spots where the picture doesn’t match the reality. You can walk freely around the Causeway and there are plenty of people doing just that. Those ethereal shots you see on postcards must have been created by closing the whole attraction for a day. Despite the crowds it was well worth the visit as well as climbing up and down the rocks – the flat surface of the hexagonal rocks actual made them easy to use as steps. Although going up was easier than coming down. I also decided to take my life in my hands doing some goat walking up a steep path and steps to walk back up the cliff and see the organ. You can see it from the beach and it looks like a series of church organ pipes. When you get up close, it looks like somebody perfectly piled up the hexagonal stones from the causeway beach. Itwasn’t the height of the trail itself but rather the dirt path carved into the side of the hill had virtually nothing to protect you from falling off. It was worth the climb for the view but it was very windy and cold so once we walked back to the car I was happy to be driving again, at least for a short while.

If you toured Ireland and stopped at every castle, I am certain it would take you over a year to circumnavigate the small island. But there are some worth a look. And some are worth paying money to see inside. We decided the ruin of Dunluce castle was the former and we took a bit of a walk around outside and took some snaps of this castle, like so many others, perched on the side of a cliff face exposed to the battering winds and waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Ireland’s ability to be the envy of the picture postcard industry is hard to overstate – from these winswept coatal ciffs to the rolling green hills. And the castles. And the churches. If it wasn’t for the history that forms so much of the folklore of Irish diaspora communities throughout the colonies (or former colonies) it would be hard to understand why any of them left (or indeed still leave) this beautiful place.

We drove westward along the Causeway Way stopping every so often to snap a pic of another castle ruin or cute little farm house or fisherman’s whitewashed cottage. The other thibg you have to be aware of on any Irish road is the tractors. I am pretty sure there are nearly as many tractors in Ireland (north and the republic) as there are cars. And you share the roads with them everywhere (apart from the freeways). Last time I was here I bought Dan a t-shirt with a pic of a tractor that said “pimp my ride”. At least now he understands what it means – still not sure it will be on high rotation in his t-shirt draw.

We arrived in Derry just over an hour before the sun set, parked and set out on a loop of the city walls. This is one of the best preserved city walls in the UK but (probably because of the history) doesn’t really feature on the touristy map. The walls are much lower than the ones in York, less than a metre off the ground in some places. And they are just part of the fabric of the town. Inside of the walls, the cobbled streets are no tourist trap – just a series of functioning businesses – shops and bars, with the odd bed and breakfast. Like its sister city, murals are part of the fabric of Derry. But the first one you come upon is unexpected – a monument to Derry’s new favourite daughters – the Derry girls who have taken the world (or at least Netflix audiences) by storm. As Northern Irish heroes go, they are probably better known than Stiff Little Fingers or Van Morrison. Just as the show hilariously tells the story of life in Derry during the late 90s in the leadup to the Good Friday agreement, you get an even stronger feeling here that the troubles are a thing of the past, despite the fact those fighting for an Irish free state in this town live just miles from the border. The other reason to walk around the city walls is that you get an excellent view of the city below . We could hear the crowd at a Gaelic football match in the stadium below (wish we’d researched that – Gaelic football would have been fun to watch). We were in Derry on a Saturday night and that meant party time in Ireland. Just stepping in for a quick pint anywhere within the rows of pubs within the city walls was an impossibility. Not even into the aptly named – Tracy’s Bar. [Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison – I haven’t always been a Van Morrison fan but have come to appreciate his music (along with a range of other mellower performers) as I get older. (Of course punk and ska – and the occasional grindcore track – still feature heavily on my playlist as I think inside I will remain twenty-something for life). This track,  the quintessential Van Morrison offering, seemed the most appropriate for this trip.]

We could also see some of the murals on the gable ends of the Irish republican enclave below, commemorating the many who died in the troubles, including children and the many many who were killed on Bloody Sunday. There are more murals here than in Belfast but less of a sense of foreboding. Perhaps it is the lack of wall. In Derry, the community was predominantly pro-republican catholic so the town doesn’t have the same sense of lingering community division. The murals tell quite a different story – one of conflict with authorities rather than community. In a country steeped in a history of conflict and discrimination, what happened here in the latter part of the twentieth century is a very recent memory. And while there are daily reminders, largely it is a community getting on with it. And tonight they were united behind their local football team.

From the past we walked towards a glimpse of the present – the peace bridge, a curving s shaped footbridge that crosses the River Foyle, joining the old town to the other side of Derry. All white tubular steel, it is supposed to represent the joining of hands across the river in peace.  From here we wandered back towards the area where we found the murals to  Jack’s Bar – what was a neighbourhood bar – for dinner. I had the vege soup – which was actually a pretty good pea and ham soup and feeling the need for something a bit healthier, I opted for the salmon. It of course came on a bed of bacon mash and with white sauce. It also came with an extra side (you could add chips) but I opted for the vege (which was mostly root vege). Dan had a pepper steak with mash and chips (and a very good pepper sauce).

Obviously Derry’s ancient history and typography make it a prettier city than Belfast but it has no less heart and I don’t know whyt more people don’t come here. Perhaps it is the lack of accommodation – the Gaelic football game was probably the reason, now I think about it, but we had to stay about 15 minutes out of town in the end. It was a short drive, to what was essentially a very large roadside hotel. They had upgraded us and we stayed in a suite at the back end of the hotel – it was decorated with very luxe peacock wallpaper and peacock blue furnishings and bedding. (Dan remarked about how many pillows were on the bed) and a pretty lush bathroom. We headed down to the hotel bar for a beer before retiring for the evening.

We decided to head back into Derry for breakfast, partly because we weren’t sure what we might find on the drive from Derry to Galway on a Sunday morning and partly because we hadn’t really explored the area inside the walls. Derry’s old town is essentially a big square and the centre of it is what you imagine was a town square in ancient times. It now has a monument in the centre, forming effectively a cobblestoned roundabout. The streets were deserted on a Sunday morning and most of the stores were either shut for the day, with just a smattering of them open on Sunday afternoon.  This included a rather interesting souvenir shop with some cool t-shirts. This was really the first store we saw that really had anything vaguely resembling souvenirs and it wasn’t the average Irish souvenir shop. [Theme from Harry’s Game – Clannad – this band  very essence of the ethereal Irish landscapes. You imagine this echoing through the hills at sunrise, its sweet choral sounds filling the air. Less well known than ex-member Enya, you can hear her musical inspiration.]

We had Breakfast at Ship Quay Inn. The breakfast was essentially for residents of the Inn (which was really busy with the weekend football game) but they found room for us – we essentially got the Inn breakfast, coffee refills and a side of toast for a pretty good price. And it was really good. I had the Fry which came with black pudding, a poached egg, tomato, mushroom and sausage while Dan opted for a cheese and ham onlette. The lady who ran the place was flitting about everywhere, welcoming guests and trying to ensure her very young (and probably quite new) staff were doing what they needed. This didn’t slow things down too much and we were soon on our way to Galway.

When you think of Belfast the main thing that comes to mind is The Troubles (at least if you are older than about 35.) It is central to the DNA of the place and the remaining political tension between Irish independence or British rule is writ large in many communities. But elsewhere Belfast is trying to reinvent itself beyond this singular narrative. There is construction everywhere, including a swish new hotel to bring tourists to the town. And the Titanic experience to give those tourists more to do than just The Troubles tours. Alas though, it is the Troubles and the division between the Falls and Shankill Road that brings people here not The Titanic or the Ulster Fry, if the amount of black cabs filtering up and down the Falls and Shankill Roads is anything to go by.

Our arrival in Belfast was easy – except for some confusion about the buses. There was a bus to the Europa bus centre which was almost right next to our hotel and then a local bus. Apparently, the blue bus for the Europa centre must have been part of some train/ferry bus deal or something because we were swiftly told the other, pink, bus was for us. The buses in Belfast look a lot like London buses except they are pink rather than red. Not sure why. Most of our bus journey in the dark was through the ports so there were a lot of port workers getting on the bus. The name of the eventual destination was different to where the driver told us to get off but he did announce when we arrived that it was the end of the line. After a day of travelling I was sincerely hoping it wouldn’t then be a long hike to the hotel. We lobbed right in front of Belfast City Hall which is quite an impressive Georgian building in contrast to a lot of Belfast. It is lit up at night and looks quite pretty (also not an adjective you would generally use to describe Belfast). Mercifully it was just a few blocks to our hotel – The Maldron Hotel (which appears to be an Irish chain). We dumped our bags and headed out for some dinner. We were tired, cold and hungry so we just settled on the first place we came across – Fybber McGees was quite the find. All dark wood interior and dimly lit like all good Irish pubs, it also had what you might describe as a typical pub food menu. Dan had been sceptical about the food in the UK and Ireland but if he hadn’t changed his mind yet, Fybber McGees did it for him. He had the steak and Guinness pie, which, like pretty much any meal you order in Ireland, came with mashed potato. (In some places you could add (or were given) a side of chips but this never really replaced the mash.) At home, potato mash seems to have gone out of favour – You might sometimes get it if you order bangers and mash but even that is not a common menu item these days. You are more likely to see celeriac, swede or cauliflower mash. Mash with every meal was a staple of my childhood so it felt nostalgic. It only served to reinforce that Ireland is thoroughly engrained in my family history and cultural upbringing if not in my DNA (despite the Scottish links from my mum’s side). I had the bangers and mash here and they were fantastic – really good quality pork sausages with thick, dark, onion gravy, just the way it should be. It was glorious. And all the better washed down by Guinness. I don’t know why but the Guinness brewed here does taste much better. It is smoother. It must be something about the way they add the nitrogen bubbles.

Keen to experience an Ulster Fry, with that Northern Irish staple – soda bread, we ventured to suitably Irish monikered diner Maggy Mays. I opted  for the Full Fry which came with more carbs than any reasonable person should eat – an egg, a sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomato, soda bread, potato bread and a pancake (the pancake isn’t a usual part of an ulster fry and they usually have black pudding). Dan opted for the Super Fry which came with all of that (x2 in the case of the eggs, bacon and sausage) and with the addition of baked beans The soda bread is a real Irish thing and particularly prevalent in Northern Ireland. It is essentially bread cooked using bicarb of soda like a cake, rather than yeast, presumably because yeast was in short supply. And Northern Irish potato bread is similatiar to the tattie scones of Scotland although not commercially produced and cooked in more butter.On day two (yes we came here twice) he had the sausage and egg wrap, with two actual sausages. They also do what they call a bap, which is essentially an egg and bacon roll. My breakfast was washed down with a pot of tea – very strong black tea – the way it should be so you can taste the tannin rather than drinking what is essentially light brown water. (Yet another sign of my culinary affinity with the Irish). The menu was quite extensive, including the drinks menu, presuming because we are in Ireland, included a pint of milk. Drinking milk like water with meals was also quite a feature of my obviously Irish influenced childhood so I couldn’t resist– I had a pint of milk (full cream of course) with breakfast on day two. [The Saints are Coming – U2 and Green Day. This is a very unusual collaboration – The Skids song was originally performed live as a duet between these two bands at to start at the opening game of the New Orleans football team after Hurricane Katrina and then released as a single. It shouldn’t work but it does.]

Sustained for the day, we set about doing our own tour of Falls and Shankill Roads. On my first visit here I had stuck with the Falls Road as I had already found that confronting. We started there this time and it was no less overwhelming. Murals here are of course very different to the mural projects revitalising industrial cities like Glasgow. They are long lived monuments to the troubles and to the political turmoil that persists for some, just slightly below the surface. First stop was the solidarity wall. In essence the struggle for Irish independence was an underdog struggle and Sinn Fein (and the IRA) aligned themselves to organisations struggling for their own freedoms. Now don’t get me wrong, the violence that was perpetrated by both sides in the troubles, including by the IRA, does not sit well with me. I, like many others I suppose, support the cause of Irish independence from Britain but not the method. The revolutionary leaders that have stood the test of time as heroes for a cause are those who did so without violence. That said, it is easy to see why the republican movement was aligned with, for example the struggle against apartheid, with unionism and also aligned with socialist parties and regimes.  The solidarity wall features Nelson Mandela and #unblockcuba amongst other leaders and causes. Further on as we continued our run through the murals, including the infamous Bobby Sands mural, we came across a mural aligned with the Victorian Electrical Trades Union in Australia. This is about the time you hit the wall that runs between these two Belfast communities. No less confronting on my second visit 14 years on and 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday agreement. I understood why it remained in place 10 years on but it is hard to fathom this is still in place today. Reportedly. the communities like the peace of mind it brings to have the wall in place and have the gates locked every evening. This in itself is challenging in a 21^st Century city trying to emerge from its past. In places along the wall where the gates are locked, there is a no man’s land that you would expect to find in 1980s Berlin or on the Korean peninsula. Granted the anti- crossing measures aren’t as harsh but they are still there – razor wire and solid steel gates included. The wall itself an already quite high concrete barrier doubles its height with the use of corrugated iron, reinforced on the Falls Road side. Then communities too are quite different with homes built right up to the wall on the Falls Road side. On the Shankill Road side, there is just the road and then a bunch of playing fields. Interestingly, the wall has no murals and very little graffiti on the Falls road side but on the Shankill road side, there is just a wall of modern graffiti

On the Shankill Road side there are less hand painted murals and more printed banners pasted to the gable ends. They were almost like solid plates (perhaps so they couldn’t be defaced). The emphasis here is less on individuals and more on the regiments. With phrases like ‘we will not have home rule’. There are also some murals of the royal family. Further into the area on the other side of Shankill Road you start to see some murals memorialising individuals. As you started to get closer towards the city, the murals began to change – with no politics to them, they were in the vein of the artistic murals that had revitalised Glasgow. As if to say “enough of the politics, we want to beautify our city in a way that leaves the troubles behind”. What began as an art competition is taking the artistic skills developed here over decades and building something better. Last time I was here, the conversations were all about why people, Northern Irish and visitors alike, couldn’t leave the troubles behind in defining the culture of Northern Ireland. On this visit, despite the dozens of black cab tours rushing about these communities, the rest of Belfast is largely just getting on with things.

We wandered back towards town. There is a massive tower block in Belfast – I am sure it was once, if not still, a public housing block. It has orange detailing and is surrounded by much lower buildings. It is like a beacon to orient yourself to. Belfast used to have a wheel – a much smaller version of the London Eye but they sensibly got rid of it over a decade ago. As we walked back to town, we knew we were nearly there when the tower was behind us. Next stop was St. George’s Market. The market had been operating as a market for a century or more – today it is like most modern stall holder markets – a mix of hipster foodie delights and interesting crafts. The difference with this one was the smattering of antique and second hand dealers selling all sorts of rare finds and bric-a-brac. Everyone else took cards but I am pretty sure these old guys would have only dealt in cash.  We wandered around conscious that we didn’t want to weigh our bags down with too much Irish bric-a-brac at this juncture (although jewellery is always easy to carry and worth a look). What I did buy was a Christmas ornament – made of Irish driftwood and painted to look like a tiny Christmas pudding.  Belfast is not a touristy town and while I am sure you can probably get a fridge magnet and postcard at the Titanic Experience, they aren’t really something you experience walking around. We also grabbed a bite to eat at the market –a couple of crepes – Nutella for Dan and traditional lemon and sugar for me  (and because this was Ireland, it came, as a lemon and sugar pancake should, with butter). I also sampled a local food truck’s seafood chowder with Guinness bread – which was almost like a dark rye sourdough. It was fantastic. Dan had mac and cheese – readying himself for the US. Then we went on a pointless expedition on the Belfast train (which runs along a corridor down the side of the city to Adelaide Station. Dan is obsessed with sports gear from a label headquartered in Northern Ireland so we ventured out into the Belfast suburbs exiting the train platform into what is best described as an industrial area and walking about 15 minutes in very cold windy weather to what turned out to be a  homecentre where the store was located next to next to a Harvey Norman. The kind of place not really designed for pedestrians. Dan’s mission was to see if he could find an instore bargain… Apparently there were better bargains to be had online.

After our trek, we chilled out for a while before heading to one of Belfast’s oldest (and most lauded) pubs for dinner – The Crown Liquor Saloon. Unable to resist sampling things, we ordered the baked camembert with relish and bread as a starter. The relish was exceptional and really made this dish. I decided it was time to order the traditional pub meal – on this island nation, fish and chips is almost a diet staple and the disappointment of the fish at the fried everything café in Glasgow had made me want to give it another go, And while it was pretty good, with a crispy beer batter, a decent sized slice of lemon (note to fish and chip shop owners – I am happy typo pay for extra lemon if it is on offer) and quite good tartare sauce, the fish itself was kind of tasteless. The flake or hake that we get at home is much tastier. Dan had wild boar pie. While dinner was solid, we both decided if we were in Belfast for longer, we would probably go back to Fybber MacGees. While our hearts were up for a big pub night before we left Belfast, our bodies weren’t playing ball so we went to bed relatively early in preparation for our driving tour of Ireland. [Orinoco Flow – Enya – you can’t have an Irish playlist without Enya or Clannad for that matter. This catchy tune opened up the ethereal sounds of Ireland to a wide audience in the late 80s. I have to admit I was a fan.]

It is true the Irish have the gift of the gab (which I am constantly reminded of) and the Northern Irish are no different. They also have a thick accent which is almost as hard to understand as a Glaswegian accent. And they talk faster.  Our cabbie was your typical middle aged Irishman. He liked a chat and a good story. We started Northern Irish and Australian weather and somehow ended up hearing the story of an African visitor decades ago who was so cold he made the cabbie turn the heat up and close the windows. The story he was telling wasn’t finished when we arrived at the hire car depot so he just kept telling it. Eventually we paid the fare (after much mucking around with the card machine), signed the rental contract – in the UK they slug you extra charges for extra drivers, zero excess insurance and navigation, making the cost about double what you would pay in Australia  – and we were on our way.

Fridge Magnets – 5     Postcards – 7     T-shirts – 2   Christmas decorations – 3

The Sherbrook cattle hotel is another folly castle built in the 1800s but it is still quite grand and features a tartan clad stair case and rooms within the eaves of the hotel. On this visit, as it was a quiet time of year, we got an upgrade to a suite which was stunning. If you are staying for a few days I highly recommend it – it was a large room with a four poster bed and an expansive bathroom with a proper claw footed bath. Dinner was the first order in Glasgow after we checked in so we wandered down the hill from the hotel and jumped on a train into the city centre. On my first trip here I had planned on a meal at the Wee Curry shop but because it literally is tiny, you had to book quite far in advance. I planned this as an activity once again on my last visit but it was closed due to the pandemic. We  hadn’t had an Indian meal since arriving in the UK so decided tonight was the night – The Wee Curry Shop appeared to be closed according to google so when an Indian place popped up in our search of nearby places to eat, we headed there. The name should have been a giveaway – Chaakoo Bombay Café. This wasn’t a cheap and cheerful Indian, rather a hipster place with an Indian menu. Not something we’ve seen at home really. The interior design turned this inner city Gerorgian bank space into a colonial era Bombay or Irani Indian café. Not really the traditional Scottish curry experience but it was quite good. You can get chips with pretty much everything in Scotland and that includes curry. We decided to eschew the chips in favour of more traditional menu treats. We had samosas to start and they were great. Not as spicy as we are used to but seemed to be made in the restaurant. Of course we try the butter chicken – which wasn’t as sweet as the curries in London but also not as strongly tomato based as at home, And the pieces of chicken were breast meat and larger. We also had the Saag Paneer  and Keema Matar, a house made lamb mince curry which was the standout. We paired it with Jerra rice and garlic naan that were larger than a dinner plate. The naan was lighter than those at home and slightly crispy at the edges like a thin pizza base but covered in more butter and less garlic. Tired after the long drive from Isle of Skye, we headed back to the hotel. Sherbrook hotel does a pretty good breakfast – I had the traditional Scottish (although it came with black pudding rather than haggis). Day two was smoked salmon and scrambled. Dan opted for the benny both days. The smoked salmo vn in Scotland is fantastic. Like all breakfasts here it came with toast and in most hotels that means in a toast rack. They also have a small continental buffet which meant juice, yoghurt and fruit. The strawberries were particularly good. Ripened on the plant and red all the way through. Like the ones we grow at home (and unlike the punnets you buy). Sustained it was onwards to the day – another short train trip into town.

Glasgow is not a pretty city. It’s city motto, clearly dreamed up to drive some kind of Glaswegian pride, is ‘people make Glasgow’. And that is exactly the feeling you get here. It’s reputation of as a hard city where there are lots of pub brawls is only part of the story. Like most northern industrial towns in the UK (notwithstanding that there are some pretty swish 19^th century piles in the area where our hotel is located and clearly some money from when shipping drove the UK economy), Glasgow was a trade and shipbuilding town. It is also a monument to Art Nouveau (not my favourite period for design and architecture but important all the same). Charles Rennie Mackintosh was from here and in Glasgow’s hey day was commissioned to complete a number of buildings around the city. These days, like many towns emerging from an industrial past, Glasgow is a hub of artistic endeavour from the murals that grace many of its gable ends to the music scene, where you can find something playing every night of the week – from troubadours in pubs through to late night metal clubs.

After three days soaking up the ancient charms of Edinburgh, we didn’t have the inclination to walk for miles to see the cathedral. And while the transport museum is interesting, I had visited on my last trip so we set about wandering the streets looking for street art and our first mural was one of the best – woodland animals and a highland cow. We found many other murals as we wandered around and came across some comic book shops and second-hand dealers. No matter where we go, Dan has the ability to gravitate us to these kinds of places. Lucky we were in the early part of our trip or there would have been one or two major purchases here. Dan found a Star Wars piece he had not seen before, but which would have been impossible to carry on our travels. I am certain our day in LA just prior to coming home will take us to the end of Hollywood Boulevard that is a treasure trove for these kinds of things. We continued our journey up the main shopping boulevard to the mecca of comic bookstores in Glasgow (well in the UK actually) -Forbidden Planet. I am sure it is associated with the store in NYC but it is definitely a chain in the UK. They even have their own t-shirts (I may have purchased one). We continued our stroll through town searching for murals and coincidentally the last one we found was equally as stunning g as the first – two sides of a laneway were painted – one with a little girl blowing bubbles and the other with a pug bemused by them. After our wander, we headed back to the hotel for a siesta before dropping the car back to Glasgow airport. [Sparky’s Dream – Teenage Fanclub – this was anthemic at the time of its release. The spiffy little hook that the song hung on was just infectious.]

We caught the bus back from the airport to town for an early dinner. We had decided that while here we should embrace the Glaswegian of frying everything so we headed to Blue Lagoon Fish and Chip shop – it has three or four outlets around the city and you can get almost anything battered and fried, including that famed Glaswegian dessert, the fried mars bar. We ordered way more than we could eat (and left quite a bit behind) but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I had the fish and chips (crumbed rather than fried). In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the greatest place to try fish and chips. The way they keep the prices down, and this place really is cheap as chips, is that they give you smaller portions and the fish fillet is about the thickness of a Macca’s cheeseburger rather than the juicy thick fillet of white fish you might get in a pub. The chips were good though – they are hand cut but not the traditional beer battered, crispy kind I am used to. We also took the opportunity to try curry sauce, a staple in this part of Scotland and also Northern Ireland. It wasn’t bad – think a Keens based sauce rather than something truly Indian – but I think I prefer the way they traditionally serve chips in the UK. With malt vinegar. It is among the things that come on the table with everything here. Tomato Ketchup, malt vinegar, brown (HP) sauce, mayonnaise, and occasionally English mustard. The tartare sauce with the fish was also quite good and it came with a reasonable sized lemon wedge. But on to the other more interesting fried foods. There were also battered sausages that were quite good – a bit like a dagwood dog but made with proper sausages. Dan also ordered deep fried pizza. It was made with pretty ordinary pizza with a thick crust and a smear of tomato base and cheese. Dan reckoned it probably would have been quite good if the quality of the pizza was better. Even though I am not the biggest pizza fan, I am not sure why you would ruin a good pizza. There was just one thing left to try –yep, you got it. We couldn’t go past the deep-fried mars bar. And by the way, although completely terrible for you, with all the same (lack of) health benefits as a donut, it was pretty damn good. The molten chocolate released inside the batter as it is quick deep fried presented as a delectably gooey mess – just like the best of desserts. More than one would likely put you in a diabetic coma. But it was so good. [Stupid Girl – Garbage – This band promised so much. Much heralded because Butch Vig produced their album and in large part they delivered. Shirley’s voice is stellar  a band whose albums I feel compelled to buy but this

After dinner, we decided it was time to find a pub and have a pint, preferably one with some music. I had done some research earlier in the day and the only gig I could find that wasn’t sold out was a metal show that kicked off at 11pm. Now while I am quite partial to a large helping of metal, it is definitely not Dan’s cup of tea. I mostly go to metal shows on my own or with mates who are similarly inclined (although most of them reside in other places these days). However, I didn’t think I’d make it to 11pm to go to a show. So we settled for MacSorley’s, a pub with a pretty decent muso playing covers. The pub itself was pretty cool with a loft style area which we headed up to – a couple of pints in hand (Guinness for me of course). I went to the loo at some point – curiously in this part of the world, the toilets in pubs and restaurants seem to always be downstairs in the basement. This one, though was a treasure trove – plastered with posters from shows that played here and in other small Dublin venues in the 70s, 80s and 90s – including one for the infamous two tone tour featuring two of the greatest bands of all time (IMHO) on the same bill – Madness and The Specials. That would have been a show to see. And for the record, I might have stayed out till all hours if that was on offer.

Our two days in Glasgow came to an end with a day of travelling. With our packs on our backs, we wandered down the hill to the train station early to ensure we didn’t miss our train to Stranrear. There was a train change at Ayr which appeared to come with the option of a bus to the ferry terminal. This may have been what I did this time fourteen years ago in reverse. I remember walking up a hill to a train station, which I thought was at Stranrear. When we arrived at Stranrear, it was clear it wasn’t. The station is on an altogether different peninsular to the ferry terminal. There is a bus every two hours following a half hour trek into town, which, coincidentally is where the taxi rank is as well. There were a few taxis at the station booked by people on the train. I flagged one of the drivers down and he put in a call to get one for us. Our driver was awesome. She was extremely helpful with our bags and getting us to the terminal after my request to go to the port turned out to refer to an actual port in a different direction. There was a bit of waiting at the ferry terminal. They let you into a lounge type area about an hour or so before boarding where you can get a pretty ordinary coffee and sandwich. Not sure what it is about ferries in Europe – they all seem to have gold fittings like they are trying to make the ferry look like an opulent way to travel. As it is, ferries are a bit like trains in Australia – used by people who have access to discounted fares. And tourists. And in this case lorry drivers to move freight. I always find the curiosity of duty free shopping on the ferry intriguing. For about half an hour to an hour, you are in international waters and thereby able to shop without British duties. If you smoke or drink a lot, it is probably worth it but I never see people clamouring to get to the merch. The crossing itself is fairly short – about two hours – and is a more pleasant way to travel than by air. Just be warned that weather can affect the ferry. Especially the fast ferry (which we took). Regular readers of this blog will recall I have been caught out by this before…

Fridge Magnets – 5     Postcards – 7     T-shirts – 2   Christmas decorations – 2