Day 8, Saturday, April 21, Belfast, Northern Ireland

It was the first rainy day after 7 beautiful ones, however, we were prepared with raincoats.

We went out early on the Food Tour. We had took a bus into downtown Belfast and stopped initially at St. George’s Market and walked around and sampled food at a few of the places. At this point, we separated into two groups to not overwhelm the shops. We started with coffee or tea and then went to a place which had hummus and tapenade along with veggies and crackers. We then went to Belfast Baps, for a large piece of bread called a “Bap”. Ours had bangers, home fries and eggs inside, and we each go a half sandwich. Very tasty and filling. Our guide used to have a bap every day for his school lunch, with just butter.

After that, we walked past the city hall and the Titanic monument. We then went down to Sawers deli which has been in operation since the late 19th century. There, we ate samples of foods and picked salmon, followed by a quick walk through the shop.

After that, we learned the history of hot chocolate, which was apparently invented in Belfast. We stopped at a little shop and the owner described the whole process, and pointed out that his hot chocolate mix had 60% chocolate, and they leave in the cocoa butter rather than separating it out and adding a different fat. The cocoa was absolutely delicious. We then stopped at a shop which sampled crackers with ”black butter” as well as cranberry jam and honey. At this point, we joined the two halves of the tour together and proceeded to down an alley to Whites Tavern for a lunch of either Irish Stew or Chowder, with Guinness or white wine. Delicious stuff.

We actually had a bus tour of Belfast in the afternoon, but we were full and exhausted and also felt that we had already seen most of what the tour would cover, so we went back to the stateroom and are relaxing. I did manage to get a good picture of “Samson” and “Goliath”, the iconic cranes, which we have certainly seen on TV shows set in Belfast.

We will, no doubt, go to lectures and dinner later, but are relaxing right now. Tomorrow we go to Liverpool, our first stop in England.