London (Southampton) to Reykjavik

Located in eastern Northern Ireland on Belfast Lough, an inlet of the north channel of the Irish Sea, Belfast is the capital and largest city in the country.

Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, Beckett– no, it’s not an English test, it’s your vacation, and if literature is of interest to you, there’s no better place to be: No other city has produced so many Nobel Prize Winners (including 1995’s recipient, the poet Seamus Heany).

Ireland’s capital is a thriving, modern city, yet it’s also strikingly elegant, with many beautifully restored Georgian buildings. And with friendly natives and cheery pubs–well, what more could a visitor want?

“Glasgow town never brought me down,” Paul McCartney sang in 1973, and Greenock, gateway to the dynamic city of Glasgow, Scotland, is sure to please you too as a jumping off point for some terrific exploration of the land of the Scotch. If you like castles and lochs (personally, we prefer bagels and lochs), you’ll love this fairy-tale kingdom.

More ancient and considerably larger than Scotland’s capital of Edinburgh, Glasgow is a multilayered and rich historical experience, easily accessible to visitors. Statue-filled George’s Square, red-brick People’s Palace, and other main buildings like the central railway station north of the river Clyde, are the obvious places to start. The ancient mass of Glasgow Cathedral sits at the city’s heart; around it, the wide streets of Buchanan Street, Argyle Street, and Sauchiehall Street have all been pedestrianized and must be savored on foot.

Known as the “West End,” the westernmost half of the city boasts the refined, handsome proportions and prosperous townhouses of the island’s finest Victorian city, along with the old and new buildings of Glasgow University. Public parks and gardens help to dignify the southern outskirts. Finally, you’ll find their tourist information office about the most helpful on the island!

Holyhead resides on Welsh Isle off the northwest coast of Wales; it is a frequent stopping point on the journey across the Irish Sea from Dublin to Wales. Castles, hiking, rocky beaches, ancient ruins, museums, camping, golf and sailing are what attracts most visitors to this scenic destination. From Holyhead, journey through the Welsh countryside to Snowdonia National Park. This vast, protected land of steep, forested mountains, crystal clear lakes and tiny villages is considered to be Wales’ greatest natural wonder. Among the castles of Wales are King Edward’s Beaumaris Fortress, with its thick stone walls; Caemarfon Castle, where Prince Charles was named Prince of Wales; and the Norman’s grand Conwy Castle, with its eight massive towers.

The capital of Greenland.

Reykjavik, is the capital of Iceland. It is the country’s chief port and center of its cod fishing industry.

Founded in 874 A.D., it is the home of the Althing, or Icelandic parliament, the oldest in Europe. The city’s heating system uses nearby hot springs. Reykjavik was the site of 1986 disarmament talks between the U.S. and USSR.

Southampton Parish, on Main Island, is one of the nine parishes each of 2.3055 (two point three zero five five) square miles. It was named after Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624), an English aristocrat, one of the most colorful Elizabethans, the patron and friend of William Shakespeare.