As you may be aware of, I spent more than a month in Northern Ireland, mostly working.

But I had also a very nice trip with my girlfriend, around some of the most beautiful places. This is the log of this amazing journey

Let’s start with a map.

View NI 2010 in a larger map

In the above map, you should see the whole trip, divided in several trails. Each trail is the route (more or less) we drove in a day, so you can keep track of the trip ^_^

Day 1: The quest for the car

All started in Belfast. I am a person who like (too much) plan his life. My plan was simple:

• wake up, at 9;
• take the car;
• lunch;
• drive along the Coaseway Coastal Route;
• arrive at 6pm to Ballycastle;
• take the room;
• dinner;
• walking at sunset.

Easy like a piece of cake, right? What I did not care was the “take the car” item.

The first mistake was book the car in the wrong city. Please, triple check everytime you click “Forward” or “Next”. This was easy to fix (“check out: Belfast…”).

The second, and very big mistake, was the credit card. The first time I rent a car, it was in the US, and I had a different card. Nowadays, I use a pre-paid one: it is so convenient, maybe too much… In fact, what I found at my expense is that you cannot rent a car with such a card!

WHAT THE #@?!!?#¡^… (fill the blank with some nasty word…) More or less this was I thought when the agency refused to give me the car. Sadly, I came back at the Campus, despearing for finding a solution.

In the meantime it was already lunch, and surfing the Internet I found this company “Alamo” and finally I was able to pre-paid the car! I was so happy that I did not believe that. And in fact, at the airport (as you can understand most of the rent-a-car company are close to the airports), again, they refused to gave me the car. The most obvious solution was: use another card. If only I would own another card…

And it is in this situation, that you can really count on your family. I phoned my sister, it came out I could have used another card from Italy, a different one. We tried, and BANG! we had the car!

It was like when the sun just opens the clouds to enlighten the world. Thank you family!

Nothing more is left for the first day. We arrived so late, that it was almost impossible to eat (remember, in Northern Ireland) most of the things close at 9pm!!!), you can figure out which sunset we saw….

And the journey continues…

The rest of the trip was amazing. If you are curious, here there are the related posts:

• Day 2: From the beach to the hills (Cushendun and Torr Head)
• Day 3: Steps of stone (the Giant’s Causeway)
• Day 4: The stones and the walled city (Kinbane Head, the Giant’s 2 and Derry/Londonderry)
• Day 5: The Inishowen 100 (Clonmany, Buncrana and Mamore Gap)
• Day 6: The rainy wood (Glenevenagh National Park and Dunfanaghy)
• Day 7: On the path of Troubles (Derry/LondonDerry)
• Day 8: Surfing the beaches (Benone strand, Dunluce and Portrush)
• Day 9: The sunrise before the End (the Causeway Coastal Route)