Ireland Day 4: Belfast to Derry, via Bushmills and the Giant's Causeway

Day 4 - I woke up feeling a little rough today from last night's adventures at Fibber Magees, but it was worth it.  First stop of the day - the Bushmills Distillery in Bushmills, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Bushmills.  It smells and tastes too sweet for me. (Short side story - close your eyes for this part mom - I drank a bottle of whiskey with my best friend when I was 15 and I puked for hours and hours.  The plus is that I had absolutely zero interest in drinking after that and didn't drink again at all until college.  The bad part is that still, to this day, if I smell most whiskeys, particularly if they have that sickeningly sweet smell, I gag and almost throw up in my mouth.  Bushmills smells too much like this for me to be able to stomach it.  I prefer Jameson.)  But back to Day 4.

The tour of the Bushmills Distillery was awesome!  In Northern Ireland (unlike in the Republic of Ireland), you can actually go into the distillery where the product is being made.  Despite the hangover, it smelled AWESOME in there!  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the distillery, but I did take some outside.

Now on to the free whiskey!  At the end of the tour we each got a free whiskey.  You could choose from all the different whiskeys they make there.  I got a hot whiskey (which I had never tried before).  I managed to choke down my free whiskey with no incidents. It was actually really good, and I will definitely be replacing hot chocolate or hot tea as my drink of choice on a chilly winter night, or when I am sick.  Whiskey was originally called "uisce beatha", meaning "the water of life," and used for medicinal purposes by the monks.  Who am I to argue with the monks?  Next time I am sick, hot whiskey it is!

After finishing our free Bushmills, we piled into the van and headed to the Giant's Causeway.  The Giant's Causeway is located in County Antrim on the northeast coast of Ireland, very close to Bushmills.  It is a World Heritage Site and was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the UK.  (Side note:  for those of you who don't know, Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK.  I am not trying to insult anyone's intelligence by including this fact here.  I am including it because I'm not sure it is common knowledge - I did not realize this until we went on this trip - I had some vague knowledge about the whole Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Troubles thing, but did not know that Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK.  When we were there, my cell phone said "Belfast, UK" which really surprised me.  Also, their currency is the pound sterling.)

Back to the Giant's Causeway.  I know I am overusing this word, but it was amazing!  It is on the coast of the Irish Sea, and consists of a bunch of columns and stepping stones that are almost all the same size and shape.

The boring explanation for this is that about 50-60 million years ago, there was some volcanic activity in this area.  The better explanation is that an Irish warrior, a giant named Fionn MacCool, built the causeway to get to Scotland, to fight his nemesis Angus, another giant in Scotland.  Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he didn't show up, the Scottish giant, who was much larger than Fionn, crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him and he pretended to be their baby son.  When Angus saw the size of the baby, he assumed the father, Fionn, must be ginormous. Angus fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway so that Fionn couldn't follow him.

Need some proof that the second story is the true one?  Here is a picture of Fionn's boot:

 Volcano my arse!  It was built by giants.

We left the Giant's Causeway and headed toward our final destination of the day - Derry (aka Londonderry - be careful which one you call it, depending on who you are talking to - loyalists, mostly Protestants, call it Londonderry - nationalists, mostly Catholics, call it Derry).  On our way there, we drove past the Dunluce Castle, also located in County Antrim.  The castle was built in the 13th Century on cliffs overlooking the sea.  Part of it fell into the sea - the story is that the owners knew that it was going to crumble into the sea, and they moved their servants' quarters into that part of the castle.  When that part collapsed into the sea, supposedly only one young kitchen boy survived.

We arrived at the Tower Hotel in Derry and took a much-needed nap.  We ate dinner at the hotel - I had the traditional roast beef dinner, which came with champ and brown gravy and Yorkshire pudding.  I'm mentioning this because I never had Yorkshire pudding before - I am leery of any Irish or English food that is called "pudding" because in my experience it usually consists of animal blood and some kind of other gross stuff.  Yorkshire pudding is delicious though - it is a pastry-type bread product (kind of the texture of a croissant) that is cooked under the meat so the drippings of the meat fall into it while it is cooking.  YUM!  I didn't go out this night - I had a half pint in the hotel bar, then went to the room to write postcards and note about our trip so far. 

Derry is the last walled-in city in Ireland, and is located along the bank of the River Foyle.  I'll talk more about Derry on my Day 6 post, because we got up early that morning and walked the walls of the city and saw a bunch of cool stuff.