Northern Ireland

Belfast is one of the youngest capitals in the world. It was here that the ‘Titanic’ was built and sent out on her fatal maiden voyage to New York in 1912.

The Glens of Antrim form a lovely and romantic area of rivers, waterfalls, wild flowers and birds. A glen is narrow mountain valley in Ireland and Scotland. People of the Glens are supposed to be great story-tellers. They tell stories and legends about the deeds of their heroes full of ‘helmets, crowns and swords’. Their numerous myths are often mysterious and gloomy.

The Giant's Causeway on the sea coast of County Antrim is a mass of stone columns standing very near together. The tops of the rocks form stepping stones leading from the cliff foot and disappearing under the sea. There are 40,000 of these stone columns. The tallest is about 42 feet (13m) high. This strange geological feature is believed to have been the result of volcanic action. It is sometimes called the eighth wonder of the world.

Ex. 3. Look at this letter sent by the English girl to her friend in Russia. What are her impressions of the place where she is spending her holidays?

Park Hotel

Cardiff

Wales, UK

June, 2006

Dear, Ksenya,

At the moment my family and I are on holiday in Wales. We are camping in tents and have unusually good weather so far. (The weather is usually terrible when we go camping!) We are at a place called Shell Island. It has 300 aches of land for people to camp on and is actually a peninsula rather than an island. It is known as an island because twice a day, at high tide, the sea covers the only road onto the island and it becomes cut off from the rest of Wales.