The airport bus stopped a few metres along Upper Leeson Road from the hotel and had us at the airport shortly after 9am. We found the Enterprise rental desk and after 20 minutes in the queue, and another bus trip we had the keys to an Opel Mokka. I think it’s the SUV equivalent of an Astra. At least it’s a 4 cylinder car. I had declined the GPS, then changed my mind and paid the extra €10 per day for it, then realised we could have just used Google maps on the phone to navigate. We set off up the M1 towards Newgrange.
After Newgrange we drove up to Belfast, where we are staying in the Tara Lodge, at 36 Cromwell Road. The room is huge, bed comfy, bathroom large, big 40” TV on the wall, so I booked for Sunday night as well. Maybe we should try to book wheelchair accessible rooms from now on. In the shower, as usual, were the usual little shampoo and body wash bottles, labelled in microscopic print. People our age who don’t wear reading glasses while showering find these utterly impossible to read. Why not a bold 14 point font on these labels? On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to matter much if you wash with shampoo, or shave using conditioner, as I did this morning.
In Wales I multiplied £ by 7/4 to get $A. In Dublin it was € by 8/5. Now it’s back to 7/4. As we entered The North, 120km/h became 70mph, km became miles. Going by the appearance of Belfast so far, the North is not doing as well as the Republic, it looks poorer. The area around the hotel near central Belfast has boarded up houses, rubbish lying around, overflowing rubbish skips, the odd rat scurrying across a lane. 30 years of The Troubles would not have helped. The local restaurants look OK though.
Dinner at Darcy’s, recommended by the hotel receptionist Amanda. Traditional Irish food, interesting decor, it was great. Newspaper front pages about the Titanic plastered on one wall. The disaster still features largely here, after 106 years. They played Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Buffalo Springfield and lots more while we dined. I’d go there just for the music!