Day 12 - Giant's Causeway & Titanic

We're heading to the Giant's Causeway right now and hoping the rain will peter out a bit. The Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most iconic natural wonders in all of Ireland. We hear there is a 20 minute walk and steps to climb down or we can pay a pound and take the public bus down. Because of the weather, we decide on the latter. We still come up like drowned rats. The rain and wind!!! The wind was wreaking havoc with our umbrella. It was turning inside out and refusing to heel! Ahhhh! Giant's Causeway - we'll never forget it!
Tonight we are staying at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, supposedly in the Guiness Book of Records as being the most bombed hotel in the world, and still surviving. The street on which it's on has been

bombed many times too. The last bombing was in 1994 but many famous people have stayed here, Bill Clinton and Bob Dylan to name a few. We hear that the toilets have been replaced dozens of times so there's no chance of a bad antique cistern.
We listen to a new rendition of O Danny Boy as we travel from Londonderry to Belfast. Beautiful green territory with a sprinkling of rain and cold breezes. Later, we arrive in Belfast and visit the Titanic Belfast Visitor Centre for a cultural insight of the history of the world's most famous ship.
This is a relatively new museum with a huge investment into it. It was fascinating to see the construction of the ship, the terrible conditions for many of the workers, and the fitout for the later trans-Atlantic voyage a year on from the launch date. It was the competition between the White Star Line and the Cunard Line which influenced many of the decisions regarding the building of the ship. We saw all the levels of the ship from bottom to top and this was impressive. It was coal fired so men were shovelling away over long shifts during the journey. During the trans-Atlantic voyage, the Titanic was only into its first evening when disaster struck. Whole families, some of whom were emigrating to America, perished on that terrible night.