Shameless plug: If you'd like to follow my trip on Polarsteps, check it out here.
Attempt to get more views: If you missed Part 4 of the series, you can find it here. You can find all the other parts of the series through links in each of the previous posts!
Let's jump right in.
July 1, 2017 (continued)
I met an American woman in my hostel room who was thinking about doing the Game of Thrones tour. Belfast and Northern Ireland is home to most of the filming locations in the series, and hence offer tours of some key spots. It's also a great way to get out of the city and see some of the sites along the coastline. We ended up going on the tour.
It was well worth it too! We drove up the Northern Ireland coast, which is absolutely beautiful. The guide was fantastic and a huge fan of the show. He even showed clips of the show at the filming locations!
I saw another Wonder of theworld UK which was the Giant's Causeway. The Giant's Causeway has a great legend about Giant's throwing rocks across the sea dividing NI and Scotland which formed the special hexagonal basalt rock formations of the Causeway. However, science has determined the Causeway was formed by cooling of an ancient volcano, although no one knows exactly how or why it happened the way it did.
All told, the tour was absolutely great and I was happy to be able to see more than just the city of Belfast. I have a ton of video from the tour, so look for it in my movie after the trip. Fair warning, it could be months before I finish this thing, I have SO MUCH FOOTAGE.
July 4, 2017
Moving on, Dublin was our next stop, which I had mixed feelings about. The city itself is very unspectacular in a visual-only aspect. There's just nothing nice to see there. There also isn't very much to see there, other than check out the pubs. And they do live up to their reputations, because I had a blast both nights we went out. The bar district is just crazy, especially on a Saturday night. The beer may be quite overpriced but the live music and atmosphere is just unlike anywhere I've seen. Mix in some traditional Irish folk music and just wow, what a great atmosphere to experience.
We did another walking tour the next day which was alright. The guide was an excellent storyteller and told us all about Ireland's roller-coaster of a history.
Taking the guide's recommendation, we checked out the Irish Whiskey Museum. It was a small little tour of Irish Whiskey history, but after 3 taste-testing size glasses of Irish whiskey and an Irish Coffee, which is more whiskey than coffee, I was quite drunk on the walk back to our place. I recommend the Irish Whiskey Museum if you ever find yourself in Dublin.
Then we did the typical touristy thing and went to the Guinness Storehouse. I am quite disappointed in the experience really. I received a lot of advice saying to check it out while I was there, and I really don't see the hype. It's 6 floors of marketing Guinness beer, along with 1 "free" beer for the fine entry price of 20 Euros. But this beer is from the Gravity Bar which you get "spectacular views" of the city. It's a shame the city has not one nice building to look at from up there. And why "Gravity bar"? It makes no sense. They don't even brew beer there anymore. AND for anyone who said Guinness tastes better in Dublin, go fly a kite. It's the exact same thing. As you may now understand, I did not enjoy this one bit.
Regardless of this, we went on a pub crawl later that night and that was a ton of fun. We met some great people and just had a great time.
An early start the next day brings me to the Cliffs of Moher. No surprise, but as soon as we arrive after a long 5 hour bus trip, fog and rain rolls in. Still very cool site to see and I'm glad I did, but again, it's just a bunch of cliffs.
A quick 2 hour flight brings us to Madrid, Spain, and a whopping 36 degrees Celsius. I'm going to skip a bit because I didn't write anything of value yet and this one is getting long as well. Moving on...
July 7, 2017
Haven't been pick-pocketed yet... so that's good.
Madrid turned out to be great fun! Did a walking tour of the city with a very enthusiastic tour guide, then a food tour a little later that evening. A Tapas tour more specifically. Tapas, because I didn't know what they were before getting to Spain, are small plates served FREE with your drink at any bar. There's some history to it but I won't get into that detail. But we went to 3 different bars and got a bunch of food and drinks. The last bar gave us a bunch of wine and most of the people on the tour left. A few of us stayed back and got wine drunk which was a blast. I met some great people that night, went dancing and had a fun time. Life of a backpacker though, we said our goodbyes and off to the next stop.
Don't worry, this is the last part for this post!
We're currently in Barcelona and day 2 is coming to a close. The city is large and our Airbnb is pretty far from the city centre, but we're quite close to the beach. I rented a bike today and biked along the coast and through a bit of the city. What an absolutely great day. Perfect weather, doing what I love to do in a beautiful city. So far so good Barcelona, expect for the lack of food around us. We make frequent trips to a mall nearby which has some good restaurant options. There's still a few days left here, so stay tuned for an update soon!
Thanks for reading!
J
Attempt to get more views: If you missed Part 4 of the series, you can find it here. You can find all the other parts of the series through links in each of the previous posts!
Let's jump right in.
July 1, 2017 (continued)
I met an American woman in my hostel room who was thinking about doing the Game of Thrones tour. Belfast and Northern Ireland is home to most of the filming locations in the series, and hence offer tours of some key spots. It's also a great way to get out of the city and see some of the sites along the coastline. We ended up going on the tour.
It was well worth it too! We drove up the Northern Ireland coast, which is absolutely beautiful. The guide was fantastic and a huge fan of the show. He even showed clips of the show at the filming locations!
I saw another Wonder of the
I know I don't typically put pictures in these posts, but how else can I get the point across as well as draw more people to my blog!
All told, the tour was absolutely great and I was happy to be able to see more than just the city of Belfast. I have a ton of video from the tour, so look for it in my movie after the trip. Fair warning, it could be months before I finish this thing, I have SO MUCH FOOTAGE.
July 4, 2017
Moving on, Dublin was our next stop, which I had mixed feelings about. The city itself is very unspectacular in a visual-only aspect. There's just nothing nice to see there. There also isn't very much to see there, other than check out the pubs. And they do live up to their reputations, because I had a blast both nights we went out. The bar district is just crazy, especially on a Saturday night. The beer may be quite overpriced but the live music and atmosphere is just unlike anywhere I've seen. Mix in some traditional Irish folk music and just wow, what a great atmosphere to experience.
We did another walking tour the next day which was alright. The guide was an excellent storyteller and told us all about Ireland's roller-coaster of a history.
Taking the guide's recommendation, we checked out the Irish Whiskey Museum. It was a small little tour of Irish Whiskey history, but after 3 taste-testing size glasses of Irish whiskey and an Irish Coffee, which is more whiskey than coffee, I was quite drunk on the walk back to our place. I recommend the Irish Whiskey Museum if you ever find yourself in Dublin.
Then we did the typical touristy thing and went to the Guinness Storehouse. I am quite disappointed in the experience really. I received a lot of advice saying to check it out while I was there, and I really don't see the hype. It's 6 floors of marketing Guinness beer, along with 1 "free" beer for the fine entry price of 20 Euros. But this beer is from the Gravity Bar which you get "spectacular views" of the city. It's a shame the city has not one nice building to look at from up there. And why "Gravity bar"? It makes no sense. They don't even brew beer there anymore. AND for anyone who said Guinness tastes better in Dublin, go fly a kite. It's the exact same thing. As you may now understand, I did not enjoy this one bit.
Regardless of this, we went on a pub crawl later that night and that was a ton of fun. We met some great people and just had a great time.
An early start the next day brings me to the Cliffs of Moher. No surprise, but as soon as we arrive after a long 5 hour bus trip, fog and rain rolls in. Still very cool site to see and I'm glad I did, but again, it's just a bunch of cliffs.
A quick 2 hour flight brings us to Madrid, Spain, and a whopping 36 degrees Celsius. I'm going to skip a bit because I didn't write anything of value yet and this one is getting long as well. Moving on...
July 7, 2017
Haven't been pick-pocketed yet... so that's good.
Madrid turned out to be great fun! Did a walking tour of the city with a very enthusiastic tour guide, then a food tour a little later that evening. A Tapas tour more specifically. Tapas, because I didn't know what they were before getting to Spain, are small plates served FREE with your drink at any bar. There's some history to it but I won't get into that detail. But we went to 3 different bars and got a bunch of food and drinks. The last bar gave us a bunch of wine and most of the people on the tour left. A few of us stayed back and got wine drunk which was a blast. I met some great people that night, went dancing and had a fun time. Life of a backpacker though, we said our goodbyes and off to the next stop.
Don't worry, this is the last part for this post!
We're currently in Barcelona and day 2 is coming to a close. The city is large and our Airbnb is pretty far from the city centre, but we're quite close to the beach. I rented a bike today and biked along the coast and through a bit of the city. What an absolutely great day. Perfect weather, doing what I love to do in a beautiful city. So far so good Barcelona, expect for the lack of food around us. We make frequent trips to a mall nearby which has some good restaurant options. There's still a few days left here, so stay tuned for an update soon!
Thanks for reading!
J
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