N Ireland - The Giants Causeway & Donegal - Walking Tour

Rendezvous in Belfast for a poignant black taxi tour of the town. For many years visitors avoided Northern Ireland until the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Troubles are obviously the ‘elephant’ in the Northern Irish living room and so, to set the scene for our walk ahead, we see some of those unforgiving murals and the strident graffiti. The strife in Northern Ireland can be traced back over eight hundred years. We see the memorial plots and the peace walls of Shanklin and the Falls and hear some first hand accounts from people who lived through those troubled times. After our tour of Belfast, we take a private transfer to our hotel in Ballygally.

We drive to the plateau behind our hotel and walk with spendid views of Scotland across the sea, down into Glenarm, one of the nine Glens of Antrim. We continue to the private Glenarm Castle with its beautiful park, home to the Earls of Antrim. We take lunch in the castle's gardens and enjoy a walk through the Earl's private garden and estate. This evening we have dinner at a private house in Larne.

We drive to the Queen of Glens described as “Switzerland in Miniature” to explore the most dramatic of the nine Glens of Antrim, Glenariff. We pass waterfalls, gorges and woodland and continue to the famous famous Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge hanging precariously over an eighty feet chasm (crossing it is optional!). Then we head to the tiny, harbour village of Ballintoy and walk along the water's edge of the glorious sandy beach at White Park Bay.

We pick up our trail to Ballycastle Bay where we take a ferry to fascinating Rathlin Island, eight miles off the coast towards Scotland. This boomerang shaped island has a particularly unspoilt environment which attracts geologists, botanists and birdwatchers alike and its very steadily rising population has reached just over 100! It is where Robert the Bruce retreated from Edward I (Longshanks) in 1306 and where, in 1898, Marconi made the world's first radio communication.

We walk along a memorable and stunning stretch of coastline past the Giant's Causeway - the extraordinary geological phenomenon of forty thousand basalt columns. We descend by the shepherds' steps to the Stones themselves and the new visitor centre. After lunch we walk the beautiful coastal surroundings of Downhill Demesne with spectacular views westwards over Downhill Strand towards Magilligan Point and County Donegal and to the east Castlerock beach towards Portstewart, Portrush and Fair Head. On the estate of the Bishop of Derry, we reach the Temple Mussenden, built in 1785 as a summer library with an architechtural style that pays tribute to the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli. We catch the ferry to the Inishowen Penisula where our country house hotel is located in the coastal village of Ballyliffin.

This morning we walk to Doagh Island and spend a the morning walking amidst wild flowers admiring coastal views. We visit the Famine Folk Museum with it's genuine 19th century thatched cottages and real life exhibits, drawing new meaning from defining moments in Ireland's history. The tour provides a weath of information about Irish immigration to the Americas, Australia and elsewhere. After lunch at the Beach House, we drive to Londonderry, the only remaining walled city in Ireland and the finest example of its type in all of Europe. We walk the historic city walls and take in the sights of this vibrant center, UK City of Culture in 2013, before returning to our hotel for our Farewell Dinner.

We bid farewell after breakfast and transfer to Belfast International Airport for our onward connections.