Laura is an international travel specialist at Explorica’s Boston office. Here, she goes into detail about her summertime travels on our Dublin & the UK tour.
I am always excited to get the opportunity to travel to a new country, so I was glad to have the chance to visit Northern Ireland for the first time. I recently did one of those ancestry DNA tests and confirmed that much of my heritage is from the United Kingdom and Ireland, so this made it extra special to get to explore the region and meet the locals.
We were very lucky to be there at a time when the weather was perfect — there wasn’t a single rainy or gloomy day! People kept telling us to make sure to take plenty of photos because there weren’t normally the beautiful blue skies that we experienced (this is also why there wasn’t anywhere equipped with AC even though it was in the high 80s!).
After spending a few days in the capital of Ireland in the south (Dublin), we headed north towards the capital of Northern Ireland (Belfast). It’s only a two-hour drive, but we headed further north up the coast to see some extraordinary sights along the Antrim Coast.
Our first stop was Ballintoy Harbour, where our coach went down the windy road lining the coast past some quaint villages until we hit a spot where the road was too small for the coach to pass. From there we took a quick walk down the road to the harbor itself where there were only a few boats and cars, one small restaurant, and a handful of other people. It was very peaceful and beautiful as we were able to take in the sights without interruption. I enjoyed walking in the sand and putting my feet in the water while others climbed around on the rock formations that were peeking out from the water.
We left Ballintoy and passed through Bushmills to get to Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s an area near the sea made up of 40,000 basalt columns and it’s like nothing I have ever seen before! The columns were formed from volcanic activity over 50 million years ago, but there is also a legend about the causeway being built by the Irish giant Finn MacCool in order to give him a pathway to meet the Scottish giant on the other side of the sea. Each hexagonal rock is different, and they have varying heights and colors as you get closer to the water. It’s amazing to walk and climb around the striking landscape.
Next up was the capital city of Belfast. We met up with our wonderful local guide and started a bus tour of the city. We first stopped at Queen’s University Belfast, where they were having graduation ceremonies, and then we drove through the city towards the Peace Wall. The peace wall has been signed by many people over the years, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and we were able to participate in this active piece of history by adding our own signatures to the wall. We ended this tour back near the water for lunch at St. George’s Market. There were so many options for great food and some souvenir shopping.
The last major stop in Belfast was the Titanic Museum. Since the ship was built in Belfast, they have a beautiful museum right on the harbor. The architect added a lot of symbolism to the building, including the benches outside that represented the Morse code for the final distress signal before the ship sank. Inside the museum, you can learn about how they built the ship, why it ended up sinking, stories of passengers in the different classes, and exactly what happened the night it sank. We spent a few hours in the museum before having some free time to explore the city center.
There are cranes everywhere in Belfast, which shows that it is a growing city and that tourism is just beginning to boom there. New hotels are popping up all over to accommodate tourists, Game of Thrones fans can see places where the show has been filmed, and the people were very welcoming — I absolutely loved Northern Ireland & can’t wait to go back to spend more time there!
Like what you see? Bring your students on this special, once-in-a-lifetime educational tour to Ireland!