Trip to Northern Ireland - Day 1

Lee and I went to Northern Ireland for four nights in the middle of May. Lee has never been to any part of Ireland before so it was all new to him. I've been three times - I visited Northern Ireland in 2000 with my parents, I went to Dublin and Belfast and Derry in 2006, and I went with Sam and Jacqui on a tour round the republic of Ireland in 2016. I really like everywhere I've been in Ireland, so was excited to go again. I can't even remember why I was looking at flights, but Manchester to Belfast was coming up at £17 each return so I persuaded Lee to book it. We ended up paying £30 each so that we could take bigger cabin bags and in fact this was all the luggage we took, meaning we didn't have to wait for baggage claim or anything. For me this meant taking not a lot of clothes at all, but it was actually fine and I would totally do it again. 

We booked to stay near Ballymena because that's sort of in the middle of Northern Ireland so was easy access to everywhere. We hired a car to pick up at Belfast International. I had spend a lot of time researching places to go, vegetarian friendly places to eat, and booking museums and stuff. I had copious notes about what we were doing! The Airbnb we stayed in had been the owner's mum's granny flat, attached to their bungalow in the middle of nowhere, and it was really cosy and cute with a lot of homely touches. 

So we set off from our house nice and early and took the cats to the cattery. We got to Manchester airport and left our car and got through security really easily. We went for breakfast and then through to departures. The plane wasn't full at all, and the flight itself takes barely forty minutes. We picked up the car and headed to the coast. I had asked for recommendations on Twitter and someone had said Maud's ice cream in Carrickfergus so we headed there. The ice cream was lovely! I had salted caramel and chocolate, which were both great. 

We drove up the coast, stopping a couple of times to look at the sea. The weather was gorgeous, far nicer than the weather forecast said it was going to be, and the sea looked totally beautiful. We drove up as far as Larne before turning inland and heading to where we were staying. We checked in, met the owner, and then headed out to the nearest Eurospar to stock up on stuff for tea a couple of nights. Vegetarian options were a little thin on the ground but I got some nice stuff. We headed back to the Airbnb where we just relaxed for the rest of the night watching TV and a film. 

I have so many photos from this holiday so please do bear with me!

Airport breakfast

Lee in the airport

And me

Hi Belfast!

My ice cream, we ate it sitting outside on a wall

Driving up the coast road

This bit was so cute

The sea and sky were so beautiful

So gorgeous! 

Looking up river somewhere

And where it met the sea

The front of our Airbnb

And the ponies that lived next door!