Wander the bustling streets or cross the new Peace Bridge and you’ll sense energy in the air; an energy that has seen it host clipper yacht homecoming races, huge Halloween carnivals and cruise liners by the dozen.
Within these historic city walls, you’ll also find one of Ireland’s youngest populations. Sure, you can still see political murals – like the famous You Are Now Entering Free Derry in the city’s Bogside neighborhood. The difference is that today, they’re tourist attractions.
In 1994, Monty Python legend Michael Palin began a famous rail journey in Derry-Londonderry, tracing the path of his great-grandmother who left Ireland for the United States of America 150 years beforehand. The first stretch of that route is one of the sweetest train rides in Ireland – following the River Foyle and gliding alongside Benone Strand, before disappearing into one of the island’s longest tunnels.
Rail is just one way to travel beyond the city. With a swift change of pace, you and your friends could be on your bikes, following the Foyle Valley Cycle Route to the border towns of Lifford and Strabane. Or what about a visit to Ness Country Park to check out the highest waterfall in Northern Ireland? A zorbing adventure in Magherafelt perhaps? Or you could test your skill against the salmon and trout along The Foyle System, one of the richest fishing rivers in Europe?
Maybe you’re feeling romantic. Plotting a proposal, even? Inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, Mussenden Temple is an 18th-century folly overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Downhill Demesne. It has even been known to host the occasional civil wedding…
Music and more in the air
Derry-Londonderry has a thriving arts and festival scene, and the county has produced two Nobel Prizewinners in its time: Seamus Heaney from Castledawson, and John Hume from the Derry-Londonderry city, which incidentally is also hometown of composer Phil Coulter.
“There was music there in the Derry air,” as Coulter wrote in The Town I Loved So Well, a famous tune in which the singer laments Derry-Londonderry’s tragic history, but looks forward to “a bright, brand new day” in the future.
That day is well and truly here.