Me and my wife just returned from an 11 day trip touring aroung the UK and Ireland and it was fantastic.
We started by flying from Halifax to London because it was the cheapest flight we could get to Great Britain. We spent one day touring around London seeing all the amazing sights in that huge city. Considering I'm only from a small town in rural Canada, sightseeing in London made me realize how shelted I am. The city is much bigger than I expected and it was a very surreal feeling when I was walking around looking at all the landmarks that I have seen in TV and movies since I was a kid.
Next we flew to Edinburgh, Scotland where we spent the next two days. We toured around the old section of the city, saw Edinburgh Castle and we went on a ghost tour. The next day we went on a day tour to Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park and Stirling Castle. The weather didn't turn out to well but what can you expect in Scotland in March. Stirling Castle was really nice and I couldn't stop thinking about Braveheart when I was there, especially since there was a big statue of Robert the Bruce in front of the castle and a huge monument to William Wallace on the other side of town. The Next day we took a train to Glasgow to see that booming city. It's much bigger than Edinburgh but it's also much more modern which is not really what I was looking for. Most of the city was built during the Victorian era and it was also heavily bombed during WWII because it was a hub for shipbuilding during that time so most of the city was not very old.
We next flew to Dublin, Ireland for four days. This is the city I most wanted to see partially because of my Irish heritage but also because it always seemed like a very lively town that was full of energy and a great place to party and boy was I not dissapointed. The day we arrived, we took the bus downtown to look around and I was absolutely packed. The street were a virtual logjam of people and it was a bit overwhelming. The next day we took the tour of the city on the hop-on, hop-off bus and saw all the major sites like Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral and of course, my favorite, The Guiness Brewery. I went a little overboard on the Guinness souvenirs for myself but it was once in a lifetime trip so I took advantage of it.
The next day we went on a day tour to Belfast to see where all the conflicts took place, see the Peace wall that seperates the catholic and protestant neighborhoods and the docks where the Titanic was built. We also stop in a small town on the way back where they have the severed head of St. Oliver Plunkett on display in the church where he use to preach. That's a whole othe story. On our last full day in Ireland we took another day tour down to Cork, Blarney and Cobh (pronounced Cove). We got to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle and we went to see one of the largest ports in Ireland which is where most of the immigrants left during the potato famine.
We then flew back to london the next day, took it easy at the hotel and flew back to Halifax the day after. It was the best trip I ever took and I highly recommend it to anyone.
