Day 26 continues….

We continued on to the City town hall after the Ulster Museum visit. It was free to enter the City town Hall, it was absolutely delightful to see the beautiful inside of the town hall.




















After the Town Hall, we walked to the Cathedral Quarter, looking for a place to have lunch. We stumbled upon the Jailhouse restaurant, and had a good lunch there.

After lunch, we wandered around the Cathedral Quarters, and then walked towards ‘The Big Fish’, passing the Elbert Memorial Clock, and crossed the Lagan bridge over the Lagan River, to the Belfast Titanic museum. It was a beautiful walk along the river Lagan.





Cathedral Quarters







Elbert Memorial Clock

Elbert Memorial Clock

The Big Fish

Across the Lagan River

Lagan Bridge

One of the 6 Glass of Theones



Belfast harbor



Titanic museum

Cherthor, Wow!!! More gorgeous photos! I especially enjoyed the photos of Belfast since we will be there for 3 nights in May. We will be staying near the Botanical Gardens. The City Hall looks like a palace! So stunning! You mentioned that it's free to get in. Did you have a guided tour of the City Hall? Or do you just wander around on your own?

KarenWoo Hi Karen, we opted not to take the next guided tour as we just missed the 11am tour. We just wandered around on our own on the ground floor and the courtyard area. The guided tour will take you to more accessible upstairs area. There are 3 tours in a day, if you time it right, you should join the guided tour. It is a very beautiful building. The tour fees is very reasonable too.

Thank you so much for this helpful information!

Day 27 - Belfast Castle in Cave Hill area. We took a bus from the city center to the Cave Hill area, then walked about 18 minutes to Belfast Castle. It was a bit of an uphill walk but nothing too strenuous. The castle was unfortunately closed for entry because of a private event. We just enjoyed the grounds of the castle, but decided not to do the strenuous cave hill trail hike.




Belfast Castle



Belfast Castle garden


The grand staircase to the castle






We took a bus back to the city after Belfast Castle. We stopped at the Belfast city center, went to the Crown bar area, checked out the inside of the Crown bar, but decided to eat at the next door bar instead. After our lunch, we just leisurely walked around and took a bus to The Orange museum and then back to our hotel on university street.

@ Cherthor

Thanks for taking the time to do this report.

I've toured Ireland 3 times by car, but I'm thinking next year I'll take another trip to see places I've missed, such as Galway and Dingle, so the information on transport is wonderful.

Have been to Ireland several times but not Belfast. Your stunning photos and interesting descriptions make that a must for next time.
The pretty blue sky in your photos adds so much. Definitely not the gray skies you would expect in April.
Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed report.

TPAYT, thanks for the compliment. We were blessed with sunny weather while visiting Belfast.

Thanks for checking out. The public transportation of Ireland between cities are good. We had no trouble going from one city to another

Day 27 Giant Causeway Tour from Belfast City center.

We boarded the bus around 8:30am, and left the city towards the coastal road. Our first short stop was the Carrickergus Castle. We did not enter the castle, just strolling around the castle grounds outside to take some pictures. We then continued on the beautiful road on a sunny day.



Carrickergus Castle

















Our next stop was the famed Game of Thrones at Carnlough Harbour. It was a quaint harbor with some beautiful views. We also had our bathroom break here.


Carnlough Harbour


Game of Thrones scene



Carnlough Harbour


Carnlough Harbour

Carnlough Harbour


Carnlough Harbour

The coastal journey continued with beautiful views along the way. The guide/driver was very good at giving a lot of information along the journey. It was a very pleasant journey and we were relaxed and comfortable on the coach.

We were told that the local government that administers the rope bridge has decided not to accept groups from May 2022 due to capacity issues. Instead, we had a short photo stop at Portaneevy Viewpoint for breathtaking views of Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge.

I was a bit disappointed not having the opportunity to cross the bridge, but the Portanneevy viewpoint made up for the lost opportunity.


Scenery along the coast


Coastal scenery

Coastal scenery





[img alt="Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint
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Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint
[img alt="Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint
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Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint
[img alt="Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint
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Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from Portaneevy Viewpoint

Portaneevy Viewpoint

Portaneevy Viewpoint

Along the coast

Along the coast

I have no idea why some of the pictures did not show up.

Here are some of the pictures : Carrick-a-Rede Ropebridge from the Portaneevy Viewpoint .

I was just on a tour the last week in September. We started our journey around the Dingle Peninsula at around 9:30 am. There were not too many tour buses along the way. Most were the smaller 16-20 seater coaches.

Continuing my report for the Giant’s Causeway tour:We had lunch at Fullerton Arms in Ballintoy. The atmosphere was good and the food was great too.


Fullerton Arms in Ballintoy


Beer Garden

The coastal view to Giant’s Causeway

The Coastal scenery




After lunch, we headed to the highlight of the tour, the Giant's Causeway. It was such a gorgeous day with a clear blue sky. We alighted at the visitor center and were told either to take the park’s bus to the Giant’s steps or hike the red path (2 miles) down to the steps. With such a good nice day, we chose the second option to see the causeway cliff path.

We continued the path and up a steep hill leading to Weir Snout. Following the trail from the Weir Snout viewpoint to the hill top known as the Aird. The view from here was spectacular but very windy. Slightly further along the path, we reached the Shepherd’s Steps. We were absolutely happy to have taken this trail, it was truly spectacular up on this side of the cliff top. We followed the Red Trail, descended the Shepherd’s Steps, and completed the 162 steps descent to the cliff bottom. Following the Blue Trail on the left which led us to the Grand Causeway.









Descending the Shepherd’s Steps



Trail to the Grand Causeway




Arriving the Grand Causeway

Wow, what a beautiful trip report. I was in Ireland this past September and saw many of the same sites that you did and many different sites. I took a tour because I was concerned about transportation and driving was not an option for me traveling alone. I did spend 4 days in Belfast by myself. It is interesting that we went many of the same places but must have taken a different street to get there. My walk to the Titanic Museum was not as interesting. Now I need to go back and see what I missed.

Do you have the name of the tour that you took to the Giant's Causeway? I know that there were many different tours. I took the Oddessy tour which looked to be the most leisurely tour but we did not make some of the stops that you did. The day that I went is rained the whole time that we were at the Giant's Causeway so I would like to go back.

Thank you for sharing. You have given me so many ideas for my return trip.

Sounds like a really good trip. Ireland is easy to do without a car if you plan your routes like you did. Buses and local tours cover most of the main spots and it saves the stress of driving narrow roads. Galway is a great base and the Aran Islands and Cliffs tour is always worth it even if the weather changes fast. Good call using public transport.

Gardendiva and NanoBossana1985

Thanks for following along.

The tour was McComb’s from TripAdvisor. We were blessed with very good weather on the day when we visited the park. The clear blue sky and the warm sun were just perfect for the visit.

We walked on the hexagonal stones, soaking up the warm sun, and enjoying the sea breeze before we hopped on the park bus, paid the bus fees, and went back to the visitor center for our returning route to Belfast.



On the way back, we had a brief stop at the ancient ruins of Dunluce Castle for pictures, then continued on to Ireland's oldest whiskey distillery, Bushmills. Visited the gift shop and enjoyed a taste of the world-famous acclaimed whiskey.


Dunluce Castle

Ireland's oldest whiskey distillery, Bushmills.




Pricey whiskey!


The final stop of the day was at the Dark Hedges, one of the Game of Thrones films sites. After the bus took the inland road for the return journey to Belfast city.

This concluded our visit to Belfast, we took the early morning bus back to Dublin the next day.


Dark Hedges

Dark Hedges

Thank you for sharing your experience! We’d really like to rent a car and drive while in Killarney. It sounds like it would be quite doable at that time of year.