Had a great nights sleep, staying in the Westin Downtown so rooms are really good. We walked down Main St and found a diner for breakfast. I forgot about the bottomless coffee refills, coffee was ordinary but not the worst I have had. Even the breakfasts here are huge. I had to have the breakfast burrito. Fuelled up for the day we headed down to Dealy Plaza which is only 2 blocks from the hotel. First impression is how bloody small and ordinary it is. We wandered...

Time for the next part of our trip. Weather was wet and cold for our departure. A short hop to London Heathrow then on to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW). Our plane was late getting into Heathrow so we had to rush to catch our next flight. I like the concept of being given champagne when you board. The configuration of the BA business class is quite weird, instead of all the seats facing each other, on faces the from and one the rear. There is a screen that can be raised...

Woke up to miserable weather, so happy to leave Belfast. Still takes me a bit to get used to the fact that it is only 160k to the capital of another country. The drive is quite boring, freeway all the way. Got a hotel in Parnell St about 500m from the Temple Bar area. Dropped out bags at the hotel, got rid of the car back to the airport rental crowd and back to the city. We wandered across to Temple Bar and on to Dublin Castle. There is such a different atmospher...

One of my bucket list items was to see the trouble spots of Belfast. I grew up hearing about the troubles on news and television. We organised the black cab tour of the trouble spots through the concierge of the Hilton Hotel. The bloke that picked us up is in in his 60s and had lived in West Belfast through the troubles. He could describe what it was like living there during the troubles and how it is slowly changing. I was amazed to see the peace wall (massive s...

Leaving Donegal we trudged our bags from the hotel down to the car park. Right next to the car park was an old anchor. Reading the plaque it turns out thus anchor is from a French ship that was dropping off Wolfe Tone and some French soldiers to support the 1798 uprising. They cut the anchor to escape a British attack. The ship, was later captured and renamed as HMS ??? and used in Nelsons fleet. Looking at history maps here I didn't realise how many ships of the...