This morning we said goodbye to Edwin and headed over to Belfast, just 30 minutes away. We parked in a mural-covered carpark and walked in the misty drizzle over to a main street, called in for a coffee in a cafe and then walked around and found a place for lunch at Granny Annie's.
Then we met Paul, a taxi driver with Paddy Campbell's black cab tours (https://belfastblackcabtours.co.uk/). He took us on an incredibly fascinating tour through Shankill Road and Falls Road, and explained about the history of the Troubles and the artifacts of that time that are still present to this very day!
There are several gates in the city which separate the Unionist side from the Loyalist side, and they all close at 7:30 pm every night. Between the gates there is a "No man zone" which is shown in this photo. We were shocked to hear that the city still shuts the gates every night (except for one that is only closed when things kick off).
This is a view of a brick wall that frequently needs to be re-painted because of hateful graffiti.
After this intense and educational taxi tour, we went to the Titanic Museum. I am not a museum-goer, but it was awesome!
In the late afternoon we decided to head towards the Mourne Mountains so that we could do a big hike tomorrow. We discovered James and his field-turned-carpark which is conveniently adjacent to the trailhead! We called ahead to see if there was space for us and as we approached about an hour later, he was standing in the middle of the site waving his arms to welcome us in! He turned out to be such a chatty and funny character.
We parked here for a mere £5 which would also see us through the day tomorrow, and we cooked a nice little meal in the van and watched the rest of Belfast.
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