Greetings from Belfast

We woke up to rain on Monday that continued for most of the day, which was not a problem at all in the afternoon since we were mostly indoors at the massive Titanic Belfast museum, but made things slippery in the morning walking on the Causeway Coast! After a big breakfast at the Da Vinci Hotel, we drove to Magheracross to see White Rocks Beach and the views below, then went to Dunluce Castle -- the inspiration for C.S. Lewis's Cair Paravel in the Narnia books -- with dramatic open ruins overlooking spectacular rock formations and many cormorants at this time of year. 

Then we went to the Giant's Causeway, a bucket list place for me since I first learned of its existence: tens of thousands of interlocking basalt columns created by an ancient volcanic eruption, leading up into the hills and down into the ocean. Though the columns are the same shapes as the ones at Devil's Tower and Reynisfjara Beach, there is really nothing else in the world like the Giant's Causeway and though the rocks were slippery from all the rain, it was absolutely spectacular to see. We ended up eating lunch in the visitor center cafe, which had curried chick pea rolls. 

We drove to Belfast past the last remaining White Star Line vessel, the SS Nomadic, to visit Titanic Belfast, which is right next to the slipways where the ship was designed and built. The museum is excellent, with artifacts, a multi-level ride through a reproduction of the shipyard, reproductions of rooms and equipment on board, and displays about the sinking and the recovery, but it also comprehensively covers the design, building, and fitting-out of the ship, and I found it very sad: we all know about the loss of the passengers and crew, but there was a lot of loss among the builders too. 

It was raining again when we left the museum, so we didn't walk the full docks. Instead we took a walk around C.S. Lewis Square, which has murals and statues pertaining to Narnia and to Lewis's life as an Ulsterman, plus we drove by places he had lived and gone to school. By then we were hungry and still wet, so we went and had dinner at the Beechlawn Hotel, whose restaurant had a wedding -- lots of people in very fancy clothes, including the bride -- plus a 21st birthday party, a Sweet 16 party, and several other large family groups; we were surprised until we found out how good the food was.