Belfast
We took the train from Edinburgh to Stranraer, then the ferry from there to Belfast. The countryside getting to Stranraer was rolling with lots of sheep and few trees, stone buildings near the tracks every few miles, and intermittent views of the sea. The ferry trip was supposed to take 1 hour 40 minutes, but for some reason they only went slowly at the start and end, for no reason I could see, so we got in an hour late. I heard something about saving fuel, but the middle part the catamaran seemed to be flying, with 4 jets (gas turbine powered pumps, really) shooting out the rear.
We walked/dragged our luggage the ~2 miles to the B&B, farther than it looked on the Rick Steves artistic map. We then went looking for the restaurant mentioned in the 2-year-old Steves book, but it had been replaced by a burger bar 6 months ago, and with no better alternative in sight, we both had the venison (farmed deer) burger. They didn't have local beer, as hard as that is to believe, so I made do with a Tiger lager. We then walked to the district on the other side of the B&B, found a coffee shop, and had dessert. After that, a couple of hours critiquing TV, mainly a show called 'Mistresses', with content as you might expect, but classier because it was on Irish TV.
We chatted at breakfast with our fellow B&Bers, a woman up from the south to take a class, and a group of Californians and whatever who were doing the grand tour of Ireland and a little bit of Paris, etc. The funny thing is that we then passed the latter group walking around downtown, then again later in the afternoon. Small town, Belfast. We took the bus tour, complete with Shankill Road and Falls Road, PC comments on the Troubles, and lots of amazing architecture. The best part was hearing that the RAF had used the Parliament building, white and on the top of a hill, as HQ during WWII; when it became obvious that the Luftwaffe was using it as a guide to bomb the shipyards, they covered it with a mixture of cattle dung and stuff to grow lichen as camouflage, which took 7 years to clean off after the war.
We've rented a car to drive up the Antrim coast, staying overnight in Portrush tomorrow. So, Giant's Causeway, Bushmill distillery, and all the rest to come. Thursday night we fly back to Edinburgh. What a whirlwind!