This morning was our last morning in Belfast. We timed it well because St George’s Market is only open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and today just happens to be Friday. We headed there first and made a cursory lap before settling on a booth selling breakfast sandwiches on bap rolls, a staple in Belfast. The sandwiches were delicious but huge (mine contained sausage, bacon, egg, and blood pudding) and both of us ended up throwing away a good portion because we were too full. That seems to have been a pattern on this trip, as serving sizes are huge. On future trips, we will consider sharing entrees and supplementing with appetizers and dessert where needed.

Knowing we’d spend a lot of time in the car again today and that we wouldn’t likely be hungry for a full lunch, we picked up some scones on our way out of the market as a snack for later and then embarked on a self-guided tour of the city center. The weather was sunny and beautiful and though we flew by most of the sights, it was still a pleasant morning. We ended the tour back at our hotel just in time to finish packing up, check out, and shlep our luggage to the car.

We weren’t in the car long before we got to our first destination, Hillsborough Castle and gardens. This is the royal residence for the British royal family in Northern Ireland and if we had been passing through a day earlier, we wouldn’t have been able to tour either the castle or gardens because King Charles and Queen Camilla just happened to be visiting Tuesday through Thursday. We could still see evidence of their stay, as they’d hosted a garden party and some of the tents and chairs were still waiting to be put back into storage. The gardens were immaculately tended (almost a little too precise for my taste; I like a little garden chaos), but it was a lovely day to stroll through and admire all of the fat, fuzzy bees moving from bloom to bloom.

We made it through the gardens and to the castle just in time for our guided tour and were given strict instructions to touch nothing and take no pictures or other recordings. The instruction to touch nothing isn’t uncommon – it’s part of the instructions in just about any furnished castle tour. But what was really interesting is that this is perhaps the first one we’ve toured where areas weren’t roped off. They actually trusted us to walk through and follow their instructions to touch nothing. This level of trust made me feel slightly uneasy, but to offset the trust, there were embroidered throw pillows on all of the upholstered chairs and sofas reminding us “Please do not sit here”. I looked in the gift shop at the end of the tour to see if they sold those pillows, but it seems they’ve missed that opportunity.

One of the more interesting things we saw on the tour was a temporary display commemorating Benjamin Franklin’s visit to Hillsborough Castle in 1771 to visit the Secretary of State for “the colonies”, which reportedly did not go well. In fact, King George III blamed the secretary, Wills Hill (for whom Hillsborough is named), for the ensuing American revolution. In the dining room during our visit, there was a portrait of Franklin, as well as an original copy of the Declaration of Independence which is somehow in better condition than our own copy currently housed in the National Archives. This is why we can’t have nice things, I guess.

After our castle tour, we headed back to the car and made for Monasterboice, another ruined monastery with yet another round tower (this one mostly intact) and a couple of high crosses. We’ve lost track of how many round towers we’ve seen so far on this trip, but it’s been quite a few. When we parked the car and opened our doors to get out, we were both smacked in the face with the smell of sheep and cattle excrement. We made a quick jaunt around the ruins, snapped a few pictures, and then high-tailed it back to the car pretty quickly.

Our next destination was the visitor’s center for the site of the Battle of the Boyne – the battle that ultimately changed the fate of Ireland and led to 300 or so years of oppression for the Irish catholic at the hands of the British empire. The visitor center had a surprisingly good 14 minute film covering the battle between King William III (the protestant Williamites) and King James II (the catholic Jacobites) that ultimately was won by the Williamites on that site along the River Boyne. Aside from the film and some remaining artillery in the courtyard of the visitor’s center, there wasn’t much left of the battle there to see. The park appears to mostly be used now for walking/jogging and has several nice gardens to wander through.

After a quick stroll through the gardens, we headed on to Trim to our lodgings for the night. I’m still feeling a bit under the weather, so we checked into our vacation rental and Charles ventured back out to pick up some “takeaway” for this evening. Spice bags/boxes are very popular right now in Ireland, which seems to mostly consist of breaded chicken chunks and chips (fries) in a bag or box with a sprinkling of a chili spice mix. It was tasty but quite a lot of food. Here again we likely could have shared one portion and wasted a lot less food. Live and learn, I suppose.

Today’s Highlights

• Delicious bap breakfast sandwich in a fun covered market
• Busy bees in gardens
• A brief but interesting tour of a royal residence
• Yet another round tower and monastic ruins
• Mannequins in wigs discussing military strategy
• Spice bags

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Sleeping in on our last day of vacation
• Touring Trim Castle
• Lazy sightseeing around the Trim area
• Getting organized for our return trip home