Belfast, Northern Ireland September 15, 2022

Around 2 am I was awoken because of a banging sound. Evidently the verandah door the separates the sections came undone and it was so windy it kept blowing it open and slamming closed. The people next door ended up putting a table in front of it to keep it font banging which was nice since it opened onto the side.

I finally work up for the day around 7am and watched us coming into the port of Belfast. The port is a little outside of town just in the other side of the airport, so not much to see.

We headed up to Cabanas to get something to eat before heading out for the morning. From where we were sitting we could see buses for the tours, taxis and shuttle buses that would take you into town. Which made us happy since we were exactly sure how we were getting into town. We hopped on the shuttle bus they were running every 10-15 minutes between town and the port. The shuttle bus took bus right to the city hall which was perfect for catching the hop on hop off bus.

We were dropped off right in front of Belfast City Hall.

Grand Opera House in Belfast. I didn’t get to go inside just look at the outside.

We walked around the town for a little while and then headed back to the city hall. The grounds were open and inside they were live streaming BBC coverage of the viewing of the coffin in London.

View of the TV’s that are in City Hall in Belfast

We decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour of Belfast. There was a long line, so we had to wait for the 2nd bus that was at 10:20. The bus was really packed and since we had limited time we didn’t get off at any stops.

We did so interesting signs. They have area where you can’t bring you open container. Lots of concern too about dogs using the restroom in certain areas and big fines for people not cleaning up after dogs anywhere outside of their own yard.

There were some large memorial areas where people have take flowers around town.

During the “Troubles” 1969s-1998 these gates would be closed and were check points for people traveling between the different areas of town.

We took a drive through the country side to Rademon Distillery. They started in 2014 and are mainly a gin distillery, but have started doing Whiskey as well. We only got to try the gin and learned how to make a gin and tonic.

The people working today were all pretty new. Th person left in charge of the distilling said he had only been working with spritz for a year before that he had always done beer. Another person helping with the drinks said he had only been there for a week. It was a little crazy going through things. We were given drinks with no instructions until every had their drinks which took a while. Then they wanted you to smell the gin and then taste it. To keep it just smells strong like alcohol. Then they taught us how to make gin and tonic. So we watched 2 people make it and then we had to get in line to make our own. They have a few kinks to work out when it comes to large groups making things run a little better. I’m not a big gin and tonic person but it was still fun to learn.