April 26th

Another moving day today. This time we were not under any pressure to be some place at a certain time so I told everyone we could have a leisurely breakfast and get on the road around 10am.
I went down and met several of the group in the dining room and we had the porters bring our bags down and loaded on to the bus in good time. I had scrambled eggs, Irish bacon, sausages, fried mushrooms, white pudding and "tatie bread" or potato bread. This is unique to Ulster the North of Ireland province and is made from mashed potato and flour and pan fried, it's thin like pita bread. Something else BTW, a "full Irish breakfast" is known in the North as "An Ulster Fry"..
We left Derry behind and once again a lovely sunny morning opened up for us as we headed east across the Antrim coast. It's actually quite beautiful, the countryside in the north, very different from the wild beauty of the west and south west. We arrived at the Giant's Causeway around noon and everyone except the driver and myself went down to see the hexagonal stone formations for which the causeway is famous. I have not been feeling my best since we arrived, and my concert last night ended with me quite tired vocally and exhausted. I stayed on the bus with Paul while the rest visited the stones and I felt better for it.
When they returned we drove a couple of miles to the town of Bushmills, famous for it's whisky distillery. No whisky for me, just a scone and coffee. After we all had lunch we drove along the Antrim coast to Carrickfergus and stopped to look at the 11th century castle and the statue of King William, who beat King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1689, and started all this sectarian crap in the North. The Antrim coast is beautiful and at one point you can see Scotland, nineteen miles away.
We arrive at our hotel in Belfast around 5pm and checked in. It's the Holiday Inn City Center and a very good location. I met a guy in the elevator who told me sixty members of "Game of Thrones" crew are staying in the hotel while shooting the final season.
Dinner was interesting...I heard the food was really good here..we had a choice of chicken or lamb, tuned out to be a buffet and it was actually quite good, very Irish style...New potatoes, carrots, turnips and gravy...I thought I left my watch in Derry, I called the hotel, they didn't find it, then I discovered it was on my wrist...I think I need a holiday after the tour...off to the Titanic Museum in the morning, should have good story tomorrow night...Later !