Giant's Causeway & a Bit of Belfast

I wrapped up my two week UK/France/Ireland trip with a Giant's Causeway Day Tour that was pretty cool.  We departed Dublin at 6:30am and headed for the Northern Ireland border.  To my surprise, there is no manned border check when you role into the UK (like the rest of the UK, there is plenty of video capturing happening as you enter the country) which is probably as we're stuck on the same island as the Republic of Ireland. 

During the drive we found our that many scenes of Game of Thrones are filmed in Northern Ireland.  The King's Road, known locally as the Dark Hedges, is here as well.

Next up was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which was very, very windy and cold with a "spitting rain" as our driver called it.

We were greeted with many sweeping views.

And yes, we had to walk over it again to return to the bus.  Thankfully on my way back I didn't have a college-aged girl jumping up and down to impress her friends. 

It was not too much more than 100 feet down, but the planks really weren't all that wide either.

Next up was the main attraction of the day, Giant's Causeway, which protruded out into the sea at the base of a beautiful ridge.

These formations are 60 million years old and were created by the cooling and shrinking of successive lava flows.

Besides these distinctive shaped interlocking basalt columns, there were some very nice views of the North Atlantic sea and the waves crashing on the rocks.

These then jet out to sea with something like 40,000 interlocking columns.

It was pretty cool & here are some more pictures.

You can sneak around back and see these from another perspective.  I'd estimate these were standing at least 30 feet tall.

Around this side of the Causeway there were some more very nice views like this one.

We departed and grabbed some photos of Dunluce Castle a few kilometers away.

Then it was on to the last stop of the day, Belfast.  Once there, I took a Black Cab "Political" Tour around town.  I learned a great deal about "the troubles" that were had for many years and found out that over 3000 people were killed in all the terrorist activities.  Here's one of the many martyr memorials that can be found around the city.

As you can see just behind the memorial wall, I also found out that there are giant walls (called Peace Walls) separating the protestant and catholic neighborhoods that Belfast still feels are needed to help keep the piece.  These walls back up onto people's homes.  It was simply inconceivable to me.

We stopped at the biggest and most famous of the walls for a closer look.

Just like President Clinton and the Dalai Lama before me, I signed the wall.

I doubt my message of "All Must Be Civil & Responsible" was anywhere near as eloquent as the two famous gentlemen I just called out, but it is aligned with my personal request of all mankind. 

Belfast, may someday those walls come down and I beg that you never again begin terrorist activities that plagued this city for so long.