A Night in Belfast

Celtic Crosses
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Today we were picked up by our Paddywagon tour bus to be taken to Belfast for our first night of our tour.  We met our tourguide, Tom, who was excellent.  On our way to Belfast we stopped to veiw some Celtic Crosses around an ancient monestary.  It was only a short stop though, and we arrived in Belfast at around 4pm.

I was a little worried when we stopped because Tom told us that there were some areas we really had to avoid because of the political tensions in the area.  Because of these tensions, Tom couldn't take us into some parts of Belfast, so we booked on a "Black Taxi Tour".  These tours can safely take you into the more troubled parts of Belfast to see the "Peace Wall" and the various murals in both the Protestant and Catholic communities.  It was quite shocking to see the hatred between the two groups, and it's still pretty bad today, even though the Irish would say it's the most peaceful time they have had for 300 years.  Our night in Belfast was ok, we went out to dinner with our tourguide and headed off for drinks after that.