Glenarm, Bangor and Belfast.

Bangor is just a short trip of 24 NM from Glenarm and with the tidal stream we can often cover that distance in less than four hours. Fortunately, with the way they were running, we had a fairly leisurely start arriving later in the afternoon.

It started as a pretty dreich affair, luckily it cleared up as the day went on, which meant we ended up crossing Belfast Lough in the sunshine. There was little wind, so we motored all the way. Bangor Marina is lovely, and the staff are fantastic. It’s a big marina with great facilities, and the town itself has everything you would need. As we were planning a trip to Belfast the following day, we decided to have something to eat and remain on the boat for the evening.

The next day we took a taxi up to the railway station and caught the train to Belfast which runs every half an hour, takes just over 40 minutes, and is cheap! We had decided to take an open-top bus tour before we found somewhere to eat and visit a pub or two. The tour of the city was extremely interesting. It took us through each of the seven quarters including parts infamous through the 70s, 80s and 90s; The Shankhill Road, The Europa Hotel, Crumlin Road and It’s a little sad to see that there remains some tension but on the whole, things were fine. We walked to the University Quarter and found a wonderful wee bakery where we got something to eat before heading for The Duke of York, where many scenes of “Line of Duty” were filmed. It was then a visit to Bittles where we got chatting with a group of Americans who appeared to be on a personally guided tour.