visiting the walled city (pt. 1)

After I’ve got my free tickets from Translink, I am visiting one city every day of the weekend. Thanks again to Translink for this opportunity!

This Saturday I went to Londonderry/Derry and decided to stay there over night…
Before I got on the train to Derry on Saturday, I’ve made a short trip to Holywood on Friday, where I walked along the shore to the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum. On the way there I had to pass certain hazardous areas…

which I luckily left behind me dry and alive 😉
I took a stroll along the shore without caring about the time, but as I arrived at the Museum I realized that I should have been…

I guess I still haven’t got used to these ultra short opening times over here…
At least there was a bus going directly from the museum back to Belfast city so I had a nice ride home.
On the next day I took the train which took me along one of the most scenic train routes in the world while passing the Atlantic Ocean.
On the way there I had the chance to talk to a math teacher from England for almost two hours about education and work opportunities in the UK. When I arrived in Londonderry/Derry I’ve done the usual tourist tour along the most noteworthy attractions of the city.

I was pretty lucky, because I just followed a large tourist group which had a tour guide booked and got to know the historical background better this way.


After leaving the walled-in area we headed to the Bogside where we also visited the Museum of Free Derry which was much more authentic than the exhibition in the Ulster Museum as it had lots of original material there as well as original footage filmed by a man who’s been killed on Bloody Sunday which was commented and explained by his father!

After having a good overview of the city I decided to take a longer walk and see if I can find something to do in the evening as well as a place to stay for the night.

The local cinema was closed, which has been a good thing as it turned out.
I finally found a Hostel which still had beds available and the price of 15£ for B&B was also very affordable. Please pay attention to the quote above the entrance:
… it’s so true…

The place was called Paddys Palace and was an alternative style hostel where there was no actual staff but just people willing to work (manage bookings, clean up etc.) there who in return were eligible to stay there for free, so basically there were people from every imaginable spot in the world except Ireland and you couldn’t really distinguish between staff and paying customers.

After seeing the really unique lobby I decided to stay there and as there were lots of people from Australia and the USA so we could easily communicate and had a wonderful (party-) time where everybody had something to tell about his journey so far and exchange his impressions and recommendations with the others. The night was short but I still slept like a god because the mattress was a lot better that the ultra soft one I have back in Belfast which causes my back to hurt because it’s so uncomfortable.
Please read the follow up article which will follow shortly, if you’re interested how the journey continued.