We really haven’t spent much time in any cities since Dublin, and there wasn’t much to see around anyway, so we walked down, across the bridge to the city walls. Derry has one of the few double decker bridges in Europe and has the only remaining “full” city walls, they were never breached.
Derry is a city full of past trouble. It is the battle ground between the Irish Nationalists (for a free Ireland) and the Unionists (loyalist to the UK crown). Even the name of the city is rife with difficulty. The legal name is “Londonderry”, but it has long been called just “Derry” also.
The city was even a center to the turbulent times referred to simply as “The Troubles.” This was a time of terrorist tactics of shootings and bombings of public places, starting in the 1960’s and having deaths as late as 2002.
We ambled along, enjoying the sights, nothing really new or noteworthy, but enjoyable. Until mom spotted a Hop-On bus sign. Wait a minute, I bought tickets for the Derry Hop-On bus before we left, Unfortunately, the bus here only makes one round per hour, so we had to wait 30-40 minutes.
We took the whole tour, coming back to where we started, mainly because the driver never stopped at the places he was supposed to stop. Also, nothing looked interesting enough to stop at.
It was just a mile to the house, so we went across the Peace Bridge and walked down the street.
Ready for a nap.