So I'm a month behind on this, but at the beginning of June we had a holiday to celebrate the Queen of England here and we spent the day with some other friends from church visiting the city of Londonderry/Derry.
Londonderry, or as it is also known, Derry, is the oldest fully intact walled city in Europe.
The walls surround the entire central part of the city. In the center of the city is a diamond shaped roundabout with four main streets jutting off of it. Up on the city walls we visited St. Columb's cathedral (below)
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| Inside St. Columb's cathedral |
Each pew had hand-carved wood on the ends. We were told that each one was different. Amazing!
I mentioned the holiday for the Queen....well, we just missed the celebration for her at the cathedral, but we did get in on the tea time....
So yeah, the Queen....she's sort of a big deal around here. This year is her 60th year on the throne, so she gave everyone a holiday to celebrate, which was pretty nice of her. While the Queen was celebrating big in England in early June (when we were in Londonderry), she did make an appearance here in Northern Ireland two weeks ago as part of her big Diamond Jubilee. Unfortunately, we didn't actually see her, but she was five minutes from our house!!
So enough about the Queen.....here's more of Derry....
Londonderry has a really interesting history that is rather hard to explain, but there was a time called the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s when Catholics and Protestants didn't get along here in Northern Ireland. There were a lot of problems in Derry. Below is the Peace Bridge which is a footbridge across the River Foyle that connects the East and West sides of the city. It just opened last year to bring the city together.
As you can tell we learned a lot of history and had a full day touring the city. Thanks to our friends Nigel and Carolyn for a fun day and for taking us to see the Gettys in concert that night!!!
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| Casey with our friends Nigel and Carolyn |
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