C. S. Lewis Tour--Belfast

I led a C. S. Lewis Tour of Ireland and England from August 14 to 26, 2016. We hope to do this tour again in 2018. So if you find the photos from our tour intriguing, please stay in touch. Our tour operator was Russ Head of the Travel Connection.

We began our tour in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where we stayed in the Jury's Inn, right in the center of town, across the street from the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (pictured above).

Our walking tour of central Belfast included a stop at Writers' Square where C. S. Lewis is remembered with this paving stone. Sadly, Cair Paravel is misspelled.

We ventured on with our guide, Sandy Smith, to Lewis' birthplace. Here is a video piece with Sandy....

From Lewis' birthplace we travelled on a short distance to Lewis' childhood home, Little Lea. The brilliant sunlight that day provided quite a contrast to this house which Lewis himself said was "much suffered in". It was here, at the age of nine, that Lewis lost his mother to cancer.

Nearby, we visited the church, St. Mark's Dundela, where Lewis was baptized in 1899 by his maternal grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Hamilton.

We also saw the rectory next door where Lewis' mother Flora lived with her parents in her youth.

From East Belfast we journeyed on to Crawfordsburn in Lewis' beloved County Down and the Old Inn where Lewis spent his honeymoon with Joy Davidman in 1958.

The thatched roof portion of this building forms the oldest part of the inn, dating to the 1600s. It is the oldest inn in Ireland still in continuous operation.

The photo above shows a view of the rear of the Old Inn. The cottage shown at right is a renovated version of the cottage in which Jack and Joy stayed on their honeymoon.

The Old Inn is a wonderful place to stay overnight, or to enjoy lunch or dinner. Pictured above is my choice for lunch, a delicious meat pie which I think would have been Lewis' choice as well.

Tomorrow I will share more of our C. S. Lewis Tour as we journeyed on to the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland....

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Will Vaus

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