Giant's Causeway- Northern Ireland Weekend

It's not often that I start in reverse order, but here we are!  I'm new to updating my blog from my phone, but it's weird and hard to upload the photos easily. So until I figure this out.... here's what I'm just going to go with!  Our wonderful weekend in Northern Ireland after a business trip to Belfast last year. We flew in, and out, of Dublin, so I have included a couple pictures from there.

Below is the Irish Breakfast that we had at a cafe in Dublin.  Counterclockwise from the grilled tomatoes, you have:

Grilled tomatoes, fried eggs, bangers (sausage), black pudding (blood), white pudding, grilled portobello mushrooms, bacon, Irish soda bread and "baked" beans.  Lovely.

I am not including much about Belfast as I have been there a couple of times for business and this time I was also working.  My husband had a great time at the Titanic exhibit, so  according to how long he talked about it at dinner that night, I would say it's a MUST go item!  We took off from Belfast with our rental car and headed towards the coast to see the sites.  

Ballymoney is called the most photographed street in Northern Ireland, which is saying something as it's in the middle of nowhere!  These tress were planted in the 1700's and are very cool to walk up through them on the road.  The road is closed to vehicles, but there were lots of busloads of people when we visited.  We took our time and worked on our patience to get the photo below.

Called the "Dark Hedges" locally, this street is also known as the King Roads from Game of Thrones.

Lots of people visit the Giant's Causeway, and its definitely worth the trip. It's very close to Bushmills, so we made that our homebase to see the local sights.  I used AllTrails and found a cool hike that comes in the "back way" to the Causeway. In other words, you will come in from the opposite side that 95% of the tourists use. I highly recommend doing this easy hike (it's mostly down... hahaha).

Dunluce Castle is a fantastically placed ruins of a castle on the coast, not far from Bushmills and Giant's Causeway. We certainly had a great day for it!

Lots of people visit the Giant's Causeway, and its definitely worth the trip. It's very close to Bushmills, so we made that our homebase to see the local sights.  I used AllTrails and found a cool hike that comes in the "back way" to the Causeway. In other words, you will come in from the opposite side that 95% of the tourists use. I highly recommend doing this easy hike (it's mostly down... hahaha).

The rock formations are so amazing, the shapes are beautiful.  Basalt rockis created from lava flow when it cools, it contracts. This stress causes cracks to form, and the most efficient way to relieve stress is by creating geometric columns, most commonly hexagons. 

Views from our hike

More views from our hike, very few tourists took this route.

We stayed at the Bushmills Inn, which was about 7-10 minutes to the Giant's Causeway.  A fun place to stay in a very small town. We hadn't purchased tickets to the Bushmills distillery and there were none to be had! Plan ahead.  We did drink some nice Guinness here in the courtyard in the sunshine and met some nice locals too.

Here's a little lane on our way to the Giant's Causeway....hmmm, where should we park?

If you want a link to the hike we took at Giant's Causeway, check out this one:  https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/giant-s-causeway-blue-trail-6d58427

Here we are in Belfast having a Guinness at the oldest pub. We highly recommend "The Crown" for a welcoming pint to start your trip to Northern Ireland. Guinness is traditional, of course.

Somebody waited patiently for me to return through our booth door with the beers, he's very clever.  These booths were originally for the ladies to drink in private, without men disturbing them.  We shared with another couple and made new friends from Ireland.  Looks like most of these booths would fit 10-12 people, so there's a private party room already to go.  Have the fish and chips, they were fantastic.