The coast

Here are a few pictures of the village we stayed in - Ballintoy. It's a very nice little village of about 160 people on the coast of Northern Ireland between the Giants Causeway and the Carrig a Reed rope bridge. From Ballintoy you can see Rathlin Island which has a population of about 100 people. On a good day you can also see the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland.


Carrig a Reed
On the last day of our journey we stopped at the Carrig a Reed rope bridge. We had been there before a few years ago, but this time it seemed smaller than I remembered and not half as scary as the first time I saw it.

I crossed it again this time and wanted to record it on my camera. Not being a fan of heights I also wanted to keep my hands very firmly placed on the handrails of the bridge - so all you can see in this clip is a view of the bridge before I started crossing it.

We took the Causeway coastal route from the Carrig a Reed rope bridge through Northern Ireland to Belfast and then the Dublin road to get home. The causeway route is beautiful and I stopped somewhere along the road to record this clip.

Derry City

On the way to our hostel on the Antrim coast we decided to go through Derry city to see what we could see. I'm still talking about the same day - Saturday the 4th of July '09 - when my brother & I were travelling through the north of Ireland.

I had been to Derry years before when we were on a family holiday in Donegal. All I can remember of it were the famous old walls around the city and the fact that once 5 o'clock came the city seemed to empty out and shut down! Because of the security situation at that time I suppose?

Today it's an interesting place to see, if only for the colourful wall murals that have made the city famous. Also the fact that the two opposing communities seem to live so close to each other and yet still don't see eye to eye is amazing. You can see their respective tribal signs of flags and symbols etc. all over the city.

Malin Head - Top of Ireland

I noticed on the map that Malin Head was sort of on the road from Donegal to Northern Ireland. Well it's very out of the way really. But I decided to go there to see what it's like as it's the most northerly point on the mainland of Ireland.

We were booked in to stay in a hostel in Antrim so didn't have a lot of time to look around at Malin Head. It was a case of rushing to get there, having a quick look around and move on again. As you can see from the photos and the video clips it's a lovely wild and rocky looking place with amazing views over the coast and the mountains.

Wee Donegal

On our little jaunt through Sligo, Donegal and Mayo in the north of Ireland my brother and I passed by the Glenveigh National Park on the road and I thought 'hang on a sec I've heard that name before somewhere, or at least it sounds familiar for some reason or other??'.

Maybe I'd just seen it on a map? Anyway, I wanted to see it - my interest was piqued. As it turned out it's a really beautiful place and I was glad I decided to stop.

It covers 16,000 acres and it's located in the heart of the Derryveagh Mountains - so you see mountains and lakes as you travel through it. We walked through the park from the car park to the castle and had a wee look around. This unexpected oriental looking statue was in the gardens near the castle.

We ate in the village of Gweedore in the heart of the Gaeltacht, a Chinese by the way and in the late evening saw this amazing sunset. A perfect way to end the day I think.

Donegal

Donegal is such a vast and wild county and that makes it a really beautiful place to see. We travelled around the county quite a bit and saw lots. On the right you can see the little fishing village of Bunbeg.

The glittering quartzite cap of Mount Errigal is really stunning. You can see it beaming from miles around. The mountain stands at 752 mts tall in the north west of Ireland. As I said earlier I tried to climb it, but was stopped by the oncoming rain. It's a beautiful sight. In the other photos you can also see what the surroundings are like.

Journey in Ireland

Well I was only a few days back from my trip around Europe when I decided to head around Ireland and see a few sights. My brother Brian came with me and we visited Co. Sligo, Co. Donegal and Co. Mayo. On our way home we travelled through Derry city and stayed a night in Ballintoy, Northern Ireland before returning to Dublin.

This sturdy old building in the centre of Sligo is Sligo Abbey and it's hundreds of years old.


While in Co. Sligo you can't help but notice Ben Bulben which hangs over the place like a big brother.

We drove out to Rosses Point where you can get an amazing view of the coast and beyond.

We also drove past the Lake Isle of Innisfree, that was made famous by the WB Yates poem of the same name. It's in a very isolated place and you reach it by going down little bohereens. It was very quiet and peaceful when we went there.

In Donegal we stayed in a really nice new youth hostel at the foot of Mount Errigal. We tried to climb the mountain but because of the approaching rain we had to give up. I would loved to have climbed up to the top, but I have to say we got a good view from where we stopped.

On my travels back home

On my way to the airport to catch my flight I found a few things which made me sit up and take notice. This video clip shows one of them. You'll see a group performing in the underground part of the train station at Keleti Pu in Budapest - totally unexpected.

This hotel which is in a really nice building on the Grand Boulevard near to the train station also made me take a second look. It's called the New York Palace hotel and dates from 1894.
So I left Budapest on 25 June 2009 and that brought an end to my journey which started on 8 June 2009. Not a terribly long time surely, but in that time I managed to go to places I had never been to before. I coverd an awful lot of ground, met lots of different people and saw lots of things that made me ask questions of myself and of others. I really enjoyed it.

Last day in Budapest

This once beautiful but now crumbling old building on the riverfront was used as a Gestapo (Nazi secret police force) HQ during World War 2. At least that's what I understood from a sign outside it.

Well my long adventure through Europe and the Middle East was coming to an end. I just had a bit of time left to see Budapest. I really like the city, it is so much nicer, cleaner and more welcoming than a lot of the other former Soviet republics. I don't know why that is, maybe it's because of the architecture which seems to be mostly very modern (19th cent) and is a remnant of the great days of Austro-Hungarian empire when they built wide boulevards and squares and big houses and apartment building to represent the empire. Here are a few photos of what I saw on my last day.

This is a Soviet monument that I saw near to the very heavily guarded American embassy.
This is Heros' Square and two of the museums that are around it.

This is one of the massive St. Stephen's Basilica in the centre of the city. It was completed in 1904 and the latin inscription means 'I am the way, the truth and the life'.

Liberty statue - Budapest

Liberty statue looks over the city from its high vantage point on top of Gellért Hill. It was erected by the Soviets in 1947 to remember the people who liberated the city and the country. I'm not sure if the locals found the liberation all that wonderful though and if it was totally welcome or not! Anyway I like the look of the old Soviet statues, their design is really interesting I find. I know they represent some of the worst oppression and tyranny in history but I still like their statues.

Like any other ex USSR republic there were lots of Soviet statues in Budapest, Lenin, Marx, Engels and all those guys. Hungary decided to do something very clever with these old statues, they removed them from their prominent positions in the city and put them in a park on the outskirts of Budapest. Why not try and make some money from these things. Here's a link for the park where the statues are -
http://www.szoborpark.hu/index.php?Lang=en


You can walk up Gellért Hill and as you can see from the photos the view from the top is great. You can see the city (well only the Buda side) beneath you and you can also see beyond the city to the green fields in the distance.

Change trains in Belgrade

We had a few hours stopover in Belgrade and had to changed trains there. I had been to this train station a couple of times before so I knew exactly where to get a coffee for breakfast. I took this short video clip near the cafe and it shows the street outside the station - very busy for that hour of the morning.


Unexpectedly it was a really modern train that we took to Budapest and it was great. We arrived in Budapest on 24 June 2009 a little bit later than expected, but at least we arrived. I was really relieved that I would be able to take my flight the next day and wouldn't be stranded there.

So I had the evening of 24 June and the day of the 25th to see Budapest.

Time to spare in Sofia

The Aussie guy from the train had been to Sofia before so he knew what was what and what was where in the city. I was glad I bumped into him and that he could be my guide because the last time I was in Sofia I found it a bit grubby and was glad that I wouldn't have to hang around there.

But now fate, in the guise of the Serbian train workers strike made me stay a while in Sofia and explore the place. From these photos it looks like anywhere else in Eastern Europe that was part of the former Soviet bloc. But this place is a little different.

It's a little sad - still to this day. Even though you can see obvious signs of prosperity, regeneration and modernity when you walk around the city, it has an air of sadness about it. I'm not sure if I'm overreacting here and expecting too much from the place or what but I found the city to be a very depressing place altogether. I don't know if it's the sad and even despairing expressions on people's faces you see in the street or the crumbling buildings and paths or what, but I really didn't get a good vibe from this city.

It's like there's no hope in the place and not even a slight possibility of any hope either. I also felt as if a general air of suspicion and distrust hangs over the place and people walk around like zombies - keeping themselves to themselves and don't even attempt to acknowledge the other human beings walking past them. I went back to the train station and was thrilled to find out that the trains were working again and that I would make it to Budapest on time. Next stop - Belgrade.

The beginning of the END

Or should that be the end of the beginning? Anyway my journey was coming to an end. I had to leave Istanbul with my return train ticket on 22 June 2009 and make my way to Budapest to catch my flight back to Ireland on 25 June 2009. Well the good news is I made it. It was a bit of an adventure like the rest of the trip but thoroughly enjoyable at the same time.


The train would bring me through Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and then through Hungary. I boarded the train at the Sirkeci train station in Istanbul at 22.05 on 22 June. It wasn't a long train and wasn't very full either. I was sharing a compartment with an Australian guy who was also going to Budapest. Everything started out ok, until the train arrived late into Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. There we found out that the Serbian train workers were on strike and that we would not be able to go through Serbia until it was resolved. So we were stuck in Sofia. I was starting to get worried because I hadn't planned for this and was afraid I would miss my flight! The lady at the information desk said to check with her later in the day to see if the train was actually going to run or not. So that meant I had some time to look around Sofia. Wow.

The above video clip shows how the terrain looks on the way into Sofia. As you can see, it's mainly just flat fields with mountains in the distance. It's very different from the train journey through Serbia - where you can see so much more and are so close to the towns and villages that you feel as if you are a part of them.

Historic tram in Istanbul

You can take this old tram down İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul - which is a busy pedestrian street. It's a really nice place with lots of shops, cafes, cinemas, restaurants, galleries and bookshops. I think there's even a church somewhere on the street too.

The tram starts in Taksim Square, which is itself a big hive of activity and winds its way down İstiklal Avenue and eventually (about 30 minutes later) ends up at the Tünel, a funicular that brings you down to the waterfront area of the city.

As you'll see when you watch the video clips attached Istanbul looks like any other city, it has all the same brands of shops and cafes as everywhere else, well in Europe anyway. Having said that though, through the people and the architecture you can still see the individuality and of the city and the country in this street.

Back in Istanbul

Going home - it felt very comfortable, kind of like I was going home when I got back to Istanbul. I suppose that's because it's a very modern, globalised, cosmopolitan city. I had been there before on this journey and so it was more familiar to me than the places I was coming from.

These short video clips show what Istanbul looks like from Galata Tower. You can see pretty far afield.

Early morning Istanbul

As I said earlier I arrived at Istanbul bus station at 5am on Sunday 21 June 2009. I had to wait around for the first tram to start working.

When I arrived in the Sultanahmet area of the city where my hostel was located I noticed something strange, NO people around. But then again, why would there be, at 7am. It was great to be able to walk around the area, which by day is teeming with tourists and just to notice what a nice place it is.

Leaving Syria

I left Syria on 19 June 2009 to catch my train in Istanbul. I bought the ticket through a 'travel agent' type guy in the hostel in Damascus. It cost 2,500 Syrian pounds, nearly €40. Not bad considering the length of the journey, about 1,000km according to a website I found on Google. Some photos of the journey attached.

On the first leg of the journey to Istanbul, the bus journey from Damascus to Antakya was a little surreal. It was at least 30 mins late setting off and I think I was the only 'real' passenger on board. The other 'passengers' were there for other reasons. Let's just say that there were lots of strange things happening at the border with the duty free and they seemed to have an unusually big supply of nappies, tea and bread. A few extra passengers got on just before the Turkish border and then vanished into thin air as soon as we crossed into Turkey.
At the border the guy in the office was looking for 550 Syrian pounds, and not 500 as I had been told. He had put an official stamp on the exit card and that's why it was 50 pounds extra. The bus driver gave him $1 and he seemed happy with that. To top it all off, I had to wait 6 hours in Antakya bus station for the bus to Istanbul and not 2 hours as had been told.
After travelling from 22.00 on Friday 19 June 2009, I finally arrived in Istanbul at about 5am on Sunday morning 21 June 2009. I was pretty knackered as you can imagine and I took the tram to the hostel I had stayed in before. The city looks amazing at that time of morning, with the sun just making an appearance and the crowds yet to arrive.

John the Baptist in Damascus

In the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus you'll find a shrine to John the Baptist. I didn't know this before entering the mosque and so was wondering what could be inside the shrine that so many people were praying in front of.

Well when I say praying, they were actually rubbing their hands on the grill of the shrine and then rubbing themselves as if they were hoping to be inspired or helped in some way by the shrine, that's said to hold the head of John the Baptist.
Before I went to Syria I thought it was a pure Muslim country and didn't know that there's about the 10% of the population that's Christian. I found this statue in the Christian quarter of Damascus.

I noticed some differences between Aleppo and the capital city of Damascus. Damascus seems to be a more liberal and cosmopolitan city. For instance in Damascus, you'll see a lot more tourists and you'll also see that not all the local women are covered up.

Maybe that's just capital cities in general - they're usually more liberal in their attitudes and not as conservative as rural or provincial cities, because they're like a melting pot of different cultures and identities. They usually have such a high concentration of diverse people and diverse ideas.