Sunday, 17th August           BALLINAMORE - DERRY

Robyn writes: Today begun uncharacteristically with nice bright sunshine. But it soon got over that, and before we left, it was raining again! We had a last lovely breakfast of Bernadette's - today, as promised, she made us boxty - she'd mentioned it yesterday - it's an Irish potato dish, so we both had it this morning. Seems to be very finely grated potato pressed heavily and fried until cooked, but not crispy like mock fish or hash browns. Will have to look up a recipe. It was nice, anyway.

After breakfast we packed our bags and organised ourselves, said our fond farewells to Bernadette and Damian (who were calling us Roslyn and Les, but that's okay!) and headed north. The big towns we went through on the way were Enniskillen (a very nice, well laid out city) and Omagh. We actually crossed into County Fermanagh, saw the sign, but didn't realise until some time later that we were now in Northern Ireland and back in the land of the Union Jack, roadsigns in miles and costings in pounds and pence! No border crossing at all - I guess it would be far too difficult to police so they obviously just don't worry about it.

Some lovely scenery on the way through County Leitrim

Omagh - a nice looking city but closed for business on a Sunday at noon!

We stopped at the town charmingly named "New Buildings" to see Lough Erne (above and below)

By the time we got to Omagh, it was nearly midday and we wanted to stop for a cuppa and something to eat. We were very pleased to spot a big Asda - these supermarkets usually have a cafe, toilets, and actually sell the Aosept contact lense solution I need, so we pulled in....only to find that they don't open until 1 o'clock on a Sunday. Amazing! So then we went for a drive down the main street, and nothing at all was open. In desparation, we headed back to the McDonald's we'd passed, as we figured at least it would be open and have toilets, and might, with any luck, have a McCafe. Well, we were right on the first two points anyway. No McCafe, but Lex was able to get a coffee and I had a vanilla thickshake. Omagh was amazing, we haven't seen a city so dead on a Sunday for several decades.

We headed north again and reached Derry around 1.30. Along the way, the roadsigns still say "Londonderry", but a lot of them have the "London" grafittied out. There's still a lot of controversy over the name. Derry seems to be the accepted one around town, but we've noticed that the tourist brochures etc say "Derry-Londonderry", which is trying to keep everyone happy!

Derry is a beautifully laid out city. It was actually a planned town when James 1 shipped in heaps of Scottish protestants during a time called "The Plantation" in the early 1600s. They built city walls around it which are still there today.

We're staying at the Tower Hotel right next to one of the gates in the wall.

View from the walls looking out

A lovely walk along the walls - still with original cannons

Looking from the outside

We found our way into our hotel, the Derry Tower Hotel, right in the centre of the city. Unfortunately we couldn't book in right away, but we were able to leave our car in the car park in the basement, and headed out to explore. Derry is a lovely city - very unusual in that it still has its city wall going right around it. One of the gates, the Castle Gate, is right next to our hotel so we went up the steps and started our trip around the wall from there. There is a really wide path all the way around - in centuries past it was a popular promenade for the well-heeled citizens of Derry. Today it was almost empty apart from a few hardy tourists, as it was so windy - blowing a gale and occasional rain squalls coming over. But the views were worth it, and we really enjoyed going around it. We had got about three-quarters of the way around when it really began to pelt down and we sought refuge in the Derry Craft centre which was just opposite. Being a Sunday, most of the shops were closed but there was a lovely little cafe open so we went in for lunch. I had a delicious quiche and salad and Lex had the goat's cheese tart and salad - all very nice. By the time we'd finished it was 3 o'clock and we were able to finish off our trip around the wall and book in to our room.

We're on the second floor in a lovely big room with not much of a view (a lot of roof in front of us but we can see the river in the distance) but it's nice and bright. We lugged all of our things up, then headed out again while it was (temporarily) not raining to see if I could find a Boots chemist to get some Aosept and Lex wanted to look for a new zip-front jacket. We explored the local shopping centres (a good place to be as it was raining and blowing a gale again) and I found the Boots, and Lex finally found a nice jacket on sale at one of the outdoor shops.

When we came back, it was still horrid and rainy so we decided to just eat in at the hotel tonight. We went down to the bar and had a drink and tea there - Lex had a baked potato with chicken, and I had a huge and very enjoyable Steak & Guiness pie (well, we ARE in Ireland!). We are now tucked up warmly in our room with the radiator on (it's currently 13 degrees, very windy, and rainy. A VERY good night to be inside...). We are of course back with BBC TV which I'm thrilled about (Irish TV stations are underwhelming, to say the least. 'Home and Away' is one of the most popular shows on them. I need say no more.) and shortly Channel 4 is showing a program updating recent finds on Richard III. Bliss!