Elephants on Cavehill

Last Sunday I finaly went for a touristic trip. In the morning, we had a meeting at Student's Union with few other students. It's a great meeting point right opposite of the main campus building. Destination of our weekend trip was the Cavehill - a hill with caves (surprise, surpriiise) behind the city. You need to take a bus to get there, but it is worth the money for ticket.

Top of the Cavehill

It was my first trip to nature here. And I have to say - I loved it! There is something about the forest and trees and hills which makes you feel like in the Shire or on an elf path. And surprisingly we were out on sunny day so even though it was very windy as always, the views were just amazing.

Sometimes I wonder why paths take the way they take

In the world of elves

Green romance

Our bus stop was near the Belfast Zoo. On our way we got aquainted with a giant marmot and going up the hill we had very interesting view over the Zoo to the sea. Imagine you are standing on a rocky mountain knowing it's February (that means snow in my home), still it's green everywhere, you can see the sea (we don't have sea at home), two elephants and a giraffe. It's beautiful sunny, windy and really cold day. What is hapenning?! I don't know what was the strangest part of the view for me. The elephants and the cold or the fact that I see the sea or the green colour all around and February feeling of spring? Who knows.

Boris and a marmot

See how the grass is sticked to the ground thanks to the wind?

The sea and the sun

Looking where we came from

Green land in February

More of the green :)

Cavehill got his name thanks to the caves in it's rocks and people always fancied this place. There is evidence about stone age occupation of the hill. Since then people always loved to come back. One of signs of people's favor is a castle from 19th century which is beautiful too. Gardens of the castle are full of cats. We thought the cats has some meaning like the castle lady loved them or so. But apparently the cats are quite new and serve only as a tool how to make your kids busy when you need to have a rest. In the castle itself you can walk freely and use any entrance you find to enter. We tried to use small elevator in 8 people, walk through the rooms and dance on the castle floor, watched a short movie... Special visit. But the castle is mostly used for conferences, so the atmosphere is not so historical anymore.

A cave on the Cavehill

Castle

Nice conference surrounding

A cat

A cat!

Where's the cat now?

On our way down the hill we met more and more of blooming bushes. I still can't get use to the fact that something can bloom in February. It's still shock even in the city. After a short break when a german scout girl offered everybody home made pancakes and ginger tea we went back to the bus. I think pancakes are really cool snack for a trip. And they were still warm! I don't have to say how much we enjoyed it after few hours on a windy hill. At the end we agreed that this was not last hiking we've done. So there is more beautiful experience and pictures comming! As a bonus I tried for the first time the city transport doubledecker second floor ride. And it was cool :-P!

Blooming bushes

There's more of them!

Just a casual doubledecker ride

Motto of the day: Only small things in life (like elephants) can make us happy. And even though the things you meet abroad won't surprise you, the combinations of them will. For sure.