Derry; Thursday, 23 July, 2009

From the hotel it was a very short walk to Great Victoria Street Station, to pick up the train to Derry, which lead to my first quandary of the day, what do you call the city. To the UK government, and to the loyalist community it is most defiantly Londonderry, to the nationalist community it’s Derry. In writing the train company appears to get around it by referring to it in most places as L’Derry (which does make it sound a bit like a French beach resort)

In the end I couldn’t be bothered with the additional two syllables and just called it Derry. When, over two hours later the train finally pulled into the station I was glad to see that all the signs from the local council say Derry rather then Londonderry.

On the map it hadn’t looked that long, but in the end it was nearly a 30 minute walk from the station to the hotel (though that did include going down the wrong road.) And that was up a pretty hefty hill.

After dropping my stuff off at the hotel I headed out into the city to have a wander around. To get the best views of the city I had a walk around the city walls, which form a complete circle around the city centre.

I then went for a wander along the river side, before being caught in a hefty shower, which was my queue to head back to the hotel for a bite to eat.