Northen Ireland

The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year. Today it was sunny, but a little cool.




We went to Belfast, the capital and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a nation of beautiful landscapes and natural phenomenon. The population is about 1,3 million inhabits.

This is the Albert Memorial Clock at Queen's Square  in Belfast. The clock tower was completed in 1869. The Albert Memorial Clock is on of the best known landmark in Belfast.

Belfast City Hall

We went to Donegall Square, which is an open public space in the centre of Belfast. In Belfast there’s a building called Belfast City Hall.


There are grounds by the Belfast City Hall. The grounds are popular for tourists and teenagers. Office workers also taking their lunch there in the summer, and some people just relaxing at the grounds.


Next to the City Hall, at the east side, there are a big Ferris wheel named The Belfast Wheel. It’s a 60-metre tall Ferris wheel that is transportable.


 

Yummy, Ulster Fry.

We got hungry, so we went into a café and bought an Ulster Fry. It's a irish dish, similar to the English breakfast. It consists of eggs, black and white pudding, baked beans, sausages, soda bread and fried tomatoes. We also bought builder’s tea with milk.

Famous people from Northern Ireland:

Mary Patricia McAleese was born in Ardoyne, north Belfast, and is the eighth President of Ireland.

Well, I think that was the last stop in The United Kingdom. 

hello Wales

Today we went to Wales. It lives about 3 million people in Wales.

 

Wales has a changeable maritime climate, like London. It’s one of the wettest countries in Europe. The weather is often cloudy, wet and windy. It’s warm, long summer days and mild, short winterdays here.

Most of Wales’ landscape is mountainous, and the landscape is really green.



Cardiff is the capital and the biggest city in Wales.



Hilton Cardiff is a 5-stars hotel. We have a view of Cardiff Castle and Cardiff City Hall. The hotel is only 2 minutes walk from Queen Street – the city’s most important shopping- and business centre with above 600 stores. We just relaxed at the hotel, before we went out for shopping and sightseeing.

 

Hilton Cardiff Hotel

At first we walked to Queen Street. It actually took 3 minutes.  But ohmygosh, so many stores! We could shop all day, but had to move on.

   

A weird man playing fiddle on a tightrope in Queen Street....

We bought Rollerblades and skateboards and skated around Queen Street:

Later we went to Cardiff Castle. The castle is a medieval castle and a Victorian architecture Gothic revival mansion. They rebuilt the castle in 1869 and built the clock tower:

The gardens by Cardiff Castle:

Welsh harp music

 



Goodbye, the green land! Next stop is Northern Ireland.

Scotland

Yesterday were the last days in England.

Today we took the plane from London to Edinburgh. I thought that all the men were wearing plaid skirts – kilt, Scotland’s national costume. But they uses it like Norwegian uses bunad. 

A man with kilt and bagpipe.

Edinburgh is the capital in Scotland, and the second biggest city in Scotland.

It’s many old, big, brown building here. We wandered around in the big city, looked at the buildings, took some pictures, and dropped by some random shops. 

A crazy man ran out of a shop. He pointed at the sea. “I saw the Loch Ness Monster!” he shouted and jumped around.  People just looked stupid at him. “The Loch Ness Monster lives in Loch Ness” they said to him. The owner of the shop we were shopping in told us about the Loch Ness Monster. Some people in Scotland believe that there’s a creature that lives in Loch Ness. Some people say that they have seen the monster, but they hadn’t evidence.

Loch Ness Monster

Later, after we had went shopping and sightseeing like tourists, we took a bus to Edinburgh Castle. It’s a big, old castle, and the most visited tourist attraction in Scotland. The 900 years old castle has pretty gardens with flowers.

Facts:

In Scotland it is monarchy. The country is governed by the English queen, Queen Elisabeth II.

 

After we had looked at the castle and had taken some pictures we went to the Edinburgh Castle Gift Shop. 

Tomorrow we are going to travel to Wales.

Big Ben & Madame Tussauds

Hi!

We woke up early this morning, to have a breakfast at the hotel. There was a lot of good food to choose between.

But I saw that all of the hotel guest ate an proper English breakfast with eggs, bacon, beans and some mushrooms. And of course they had a cup of tea for the breakfast. Therefore I also chose such an English breakfast.

 

Later, when we were full and fat, everyone went shopping together.

After shopping we went to a café nearby to eat lunch.  

We walked around on the streets in London, in front of the big clock, Big Ben. Big Ben is actually the nickname of the bell biggest bell of the clock.  The four other bells are used as quarter bells.

The clock face has a diameter of almost 7.5m.

The clock tower is actually the tower of the Houses of Parliament, and is 96,3 m tall.

We were standing under the clock, and could see the 4,25 meter long minute hand pointing at 2, and the 2,7 meter long hour hand point at 12. Then the bells ring two times.

The same bus driver, with the same bus as yesterday, drove us to the nearest subway station. Then we took the underground train to the nearest stop at Madame Tussaudes museum.

We saw a lot of wax celebrities. The wax figures were really cool!

 
Lady gaga

      

Cheryl Cole and Zac Efron. 

We took a bus to Hyde Park. That’s a really big and nice park. We had picnic lunch and took a lot of pictures.

Then we took a bus back to the hotel.

London Eye

Hello!

We arrived at the airport in London 08:00. We were so tired, because we didn’t sleep well at the plane.

We got picked up and driven around in London in this little thing:

a double decker!

Even though I was tired, I couldn’t sleep. So I sat and took pictures of everyone who slept on the bus.

The bus driver talked in the speaker. He woke everyone on the bus. He said that we had arrived London Eye.

 

We could see the 135-metre tall Ferris wheel from the buss. It’s the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe.

We got off the bus, and went to huge the Ferris wheel. We had to stand in line a long time, but we got in a capsule at the end. There’s room for 25 people in each capsule. But the whole thing (London Eye) has space for 800 people!
Today we were one of those 3,5 million people that visits London Eye annually.

Here's a video from the trip on London Eye:

After a roound on the Ferris wheel, the bus driver drove us to the hotel. We checked in, and rested a while.

London's population is about 7,6 millions.
London has a temperate marine climate. The city sees high and low temperatures. Summers in London ar really warm. The daytime temperatures is above 20 °C. Today it was nice weather. 19 °C.

 At the end of the day, we went shopping.

Some famous people from London:

The author of Rome and Juliet, William Shakespear spent a large part of his life living and working in London.

Elizabeth II is the queen of England, Canada and Australia and some other Lands.

 Sports in London:
London has hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1908 and 1948. London is also chosen to host the Olympic an Paralympic Games in 2012. London will become the first city in the world which hosts the Summer Olympics three times.