So ... this post is intended to be a very compacted "catch up" of what we have done after the feast in Bunratty Castle and now ... and it is quite a lot of ground to cover.
We left Bunratty and drove for several hours into Northern Ireland and the city of Belfast ... Belfast, and I suppose Northern Ireland as a whole is a little less "cheery" than some of our previous stops ... the unemployment rate is apparently extremely high and we observed MANY blocks of huge office building completely vacant with "To Let" signs everywhere.. We stayed in a Holiday Inn express as close to the ferry dock as we could get .. parked in the lot that was secured with razor wire .... hmmm ... and did not venture out of the hotel until the next morning when we left for the ferry. We simply didn't feel exactly "safe" in Belfast. Could have been completely incorrect about that but none of us wanted to take a chance.
This building was a part of a large number across from our hotel ... empty ...
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
So we boarded the ferry and had a very smooth crossing to Stranraer, Scotland.
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
Not our best meal ...
We managed to find our B&B with only one wrong doorbell ... and were in for the night. The folks running the accomodation were very nice and the next morning the owner drove Woodie and I down to a laundry, we left our clothes and he picked them up for us before we returned from the day's touring. The rooms were "tiny" but the hosts were nice, the food was good and we had easy access to public transportation ... no wifi was the only real rough spot.
For the sake of brevity I'm just going to ,mention several of the things we saw and did in Edinburgh and then post some pictures ..
Our first tour was of Edinburgh Castle ... while there we saw some portraits of long lost relatives and I believe Woodie and Linda did the same ....
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
Besides the castle we did some serious shopping and took a ride out to Rosslyn Chapel. This chapel is of course a significant player un Dan Brown's book The Di Vinci Code and is surrounded with several legends relating to the Templar Knights and even a possible burial place of Mary Magdalene. It was an interesting tour.
We booked a tour of the Scottish Highlands that would take us all the way up to Loch Ness ... this was basically a 5 hour bus ride up, a couple of hours around the Loch and 5 hours back ... it made for a very long day, the weather was mostly rainy but we were all glad to have had the chance to stand on the banks of the famous Loch Ness ... even if we didn't catch sight of Nessie.
Today we drove from Edinburgh to York with a side trip to see Hadrian's Wall ... along the way we saw lots of scenery as the day was very clear for the most part.
Ok now I'm going to dump several pictures into the web log with many many more in the gallery ... I'll only note a few captions ... I'll clean that up when I'm home with more time and better network access.
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
Edinburgh Castle
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
Tomorrow Cambridge and the next day into London for the duration.
Rosslyn Chaapel ... no inside photos
 |
| From Great Britain Odyssey 2010 |
