Belfast to see the Giro d'Italia start

Titanic Belfast and the Giro d'Italia jumbotron

Today, after a beautiful breakfast of farm fresh perfectly scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and homemade brown Irish soda bread, we headed off to Belfast to see if we could see some of the Giro d'Italia. It was raining off and on when we left. We chose our route in google maps and started the navigation. By the time we got into Belfast the rain had begun to slack. We found the parking area for the Giro and Titanic Belfast. It had begun raining again and we realized we didn't have any pounds only euros, oops. I got out to talk to one of the fellows manning the parking area. He was very informative and helpful, regaling me with stories of Belfast and The Troubles as well as other knowledge about the area. Turned out he was a tour guide when he wasn't volunteering to park cars. He also told us where to find an ATM and that the other gentleman would accept Euros. Yay!

We parked the car and wandered over to the Titanic Quarter to join in the Giro event. It was still raining lightly so there weren't as many people enjoying the booths as there normally would be but there were still quite a few. Northern Ireland was extremely thrilled to host the start of the Giro d'Italia and it was evident everywhere you went. Everything possible was draped in pink or painted pink.

Seen along the road well outside of Belfast

We decided to take the Titanic Belfast tour since it was raining and there wasn't much to see with regard to the Giro. It's an informative tour of the history of the Titanic and the Harland & Wolff Shipping Company who were the builders of the Titanic in 1912.

By the time the tour was over we were starving and bought lunch at the bistro there. It was surprisingly good.

We had paid for the self-tour of the slipways and cranes but it was raining so hard by then that we became soaked just walking a block or so away from the building. We decided we wouldn't be able to enjoy that and went back in for coffee and drying.

Victoria Shopping Centre

After drying off we went back to the car to head to an Apple Store for a car charger. My iPhone was really sucking down the battery being used for GPS and navigation. It turned out that the finish of the Giro was on the way to the shopping area we were headed to so we did get to see some of the soaking wet Giro finishers. It was still really coming down.

Back in the car, charger in hand, we programmed in our next destination which was a return trip to the Bay Cottage. Other than managing to come out of a roundabout into the airport parking in Antrim and having to pay a pound to get out we made it back with no problems.

That night we went to dinner at the Templeton Hotel in Templepatrick, Antrim Co. and had a delicious dinner. I had baked salmon with lentils, rocket, goat cheese and walnuts with a drizzle of pesto oil. Chris had the seafood chowder, which was also delicious.