Finally. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on how I wanted to approach this subject. Partly because I have some conflicting feelings on the subject. So, sit back, relax, have a glass of wine (2 or 3 – you’ll like my blog better that way), and let me tell you about this town we are currently living in (why do I have the Beverly Hillbillies song in my head now?).
We are sitting on the Antrim Coast at the beginning of the Coastal Route along the far northern coast of the island of Ireland. That little tip of Scotland that you see on the right side of the map is visible on a clear day.
Larne, as a town, has been around for a long time, but as far as I know, there is very little remaining of the old. There are some castle ruins along the little inlet, otherwise the oldest buildings that I know of are early to mid 1800s. The harbor is calm most of the time, so one of the Scotland ferries runs out of here. These are big ship kind of ferries, which makes sense since they are crossing the North Atlantic. I am used to the Washington State ferries…they would be dwarfed by these ships!
Most every morning the Husband and I take a walk. The house that our flat is part of is close to the entrance to the Town Park. We go down a little street, cross the coast road (remembering which way traffic is coming from!), go down a little path and we are at the water! No view from the house though (sadly). The promenade along the sea is our favorite part of our morning walks. It looks different every day. We can tell whether we left on time, early or later than usual depending on where the ferry is!
The tower that has featured in a couple of photos is a memorial to a man named James Chaine. He was a Member of Parliament and apparently did a lot of good for the area. When he died in 1885 the round tower at the beach was erected in his memory. He was also buried in the Town Park…seriously.
After walking along the water we head into town. The main street (called…wait for it…Main Street) is where most of the shops are located. I don’t have any photos of it – it’s not very scenic. What it does look like is British, rather than the Irish style. I’m not sure if this is because it was it was built later, or because Larne was very much a Unionist town. That means that they were firmly on the side of UK/Protestant during the Troubles (and earlier). That does not mean that there are no Catholics/Catholic churches here. In fact, there are two. I’ve asked a few locals and they say that the conflict is in the past. We had a cab driver the other day who admitted he was one of the young guys throwing molotov cocktails at vehicles during the Troubles – all he wants now is peace. There are definitely neighborhoods that feel compelled to “paint” here – something more common in Belfast to denote whether a neighborhood is Republican (generally Catholic) or Unionist (generally Protestant). We have one that we walk through every day.
While there are a couple of proper grocery stores in town, we like to shop at the butcher (who carries a surprising variety of stuff) and the fruit/veg shop on Main Street. We can’t get over how inexpensive everything is here! And the quality is wonderful. The train station is just off of Main Street and is very convenient. Biggest issue we deal with is that everything is downhill from us. Which means, what goes down, must come back up! We tell ourselves it’s training for when we move to France in October. Dinan is the only town on this whole trip that we have already been to. Our house is on a hill. Cobblestoned hill. Oh boy. Anyway, the walks are good for all of us. We have found some of our favorite places to eat of course. The Coffee Doc is great fun and good food. Steady Eddie’s is our Friday dinner favorite. We can get pretty good pizza in our neighborhood. American style, as opposed to European style, which I find interesting, but it’s good stuff. We are still finding new things though, which we enjoy.
I would not say that I love this place, but I like it and it has been a good place to stay. It’s easy to get to other areas and the people have been nothing but kind. They do seem very surprised that we are here though. I don’t think they have many people who stay here more than a few days and as soon as we open our mouths they know we aren’t locals. I can’t even begin to replicate the accent here. It’s like a little Irish, a bit of British and a glob of Scottish all had too much whiskey. This weekend, we are hanging out in town, although I am pushing to head to Belfast on Sunday. I really need to replace a few clothing items. I’m getting to the point where I never want to see a couple of shirts ever again. Yeah, yeah. First world problems, right?