Saturday, June 09, 2007
Slash City
We spent two nights in Derry, officially known as Londonderry, depending on if you are a Republican or Unionist. A lot of the road signs even refer to it as "Derry/Londonderry." When we were touring George Lowden's guitar making shop, he told us that they often refer to it as "Slash City" because of the /.
U2 wrote the song Sunday Bloody Sunday about a tragic event that happened in this town where British soldiers fired on some protesters. As we were walking from our hotel to the bridge across the Foyle River into the city, we walked a bit with an older gentleman who was actually on a boat on the Foyle when the shooting and rioting broke out.
The city center is surrounded by a wall, though the town has expanded far past the walls. The walls were built in 1618 and have never been penetrated.
Here's my wife modeling her star-studded USA flag belt, purchased at a Salvation Army in Londonderry earlier in the day... It was the only suitable belt they had there, the ladies working there thought it was pretty funny.
The city is rich in history, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending much time there as a tourist. We were surprised at how trashy the city was, garbage and graffiti everywhere. In the city we walked past a heavy steel door that was just covered with graffiti, even graffiti over other graffiti... I looked up and saw that it was the entry to the motor vehicle licensing office. I'm glad we went, but it was still sort of a depressing place.
U2 wrote the song Sunday Bloody Sunday about a tragic event that happened in this town where British soldiers fired on some protesters. As we were walking from our hotel to the bridge across the Foyle River into the city, we walked a bit with an older gentleman who was actually on a boat on the Foyle when the shooting and rioting broke out.
The city center is surrounded by a wall, though the town has expanded far past the walls. The walls were built in 1618 and have never been penetrated.
Here's my wife modeling her star-studded USA flag belt, purchased at a Salvation Army in Londonderry earlier in the day... It was the only suitable belt they had there, the ladies working there thought it was pretty funny.
The city is rich in history, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend spending much time there as a tourist. We were surprised at how trashy the city was, garbage and graffiti everywhere. In the city we walked past a heavy steel door that was just covered with graffiti, even graffiti over other graffiti... I looked up and saw that it was the entry to the motor vehicle licensing office. I'm glad we went, but it was still sort of a depressing place.
