Our day started with a Black Cab tour of the Shankill Road and Falls Road areas of Belfast. Our driver arrived on time and provided us with expert commentary on our trip around the two districts - the Shankill Road area being the Protestant area and the Falls Road area being the Catholic area. Our driver, being a confessed protestant - cleary was biased in his history of the troubled times, however, it was good to get a perspective from him and he did try to provide an even balance when he took us to the Falls Road area. At least we felt perfectly safe in the Shankill Road area as we were able to walk around freely, knowing that our driver was a local!!!

It is still a disturbing tale that is told of this area and it is hard to draw a conclusion on what is right and what is wrong - I will leave that up to each individual to decide - really, when you think about it, there are no winners and losers - the communities are still bitterly divded - but at least the fighting appears to have ceased. Clearly the city centre of Belfast appears now to be a "neutral" zone, so lets hope this can be expanded upon. It was however, interesting to note that one of the hotels in Belfast has been bombed no fewer than 33 times.....but at least it has been a number of years since the last bombing.

After our trip, we decided to leave Belfast and head further north - up to the Giant's Causeway. We travelled up the coast - one of the highlights was driving through Carrickfergus and playing the song!!! then heading through towns such as Larne, Ballymena, Coleraine and Bushmills before hitting Giant's Causeway. It is an interesting place Giant's Causeway - stunning sceneary and certainly not for the faint hearted - the walk in and out of the place takes over an hour - but well worth the effort.

After leaving Giant's Causeway, we headed to Derry, stopping briefly at Portrush - the home of the latest British Open winner - Darren Clarke. The golf course was spectacular - what I would have given to play a game of golf there - but time was against me. However, if I get the chance to come back to these shores, Portrush Golf Course is on the list!!!

We arrived in Derry around 4pm and checked into our accommodation - The Travelodge. Centrally located and a neat and tidy room. We took a walk around the area and it is certainly filled with a lot of history which we will explore in the morning when we complete the Derry Walking Tour. Today we just had time to walk around the city to get a feel for the place and have a quick look at the walled city and some of its murials.

We had dinner at a local pub - a place run by a company called Wetherspoon - highly recommended as their food is great and well priced. On the way back to our accommodation we called into the Dunlogue Hotel for a drink, but decided to have an early night tonight.

Derry is a depressing sort place - all of the shop windows have shutters pulled down on their shop fronts - it certainly does not look like an appealing sort of town - however, tomorrow may prove to be different.