Due to a very ambitious schedule I only got to spend an afternoon in Dublin before boarding an "international" train to Belfast the next morning. The train departed at 7:30am and took about two hours to reach Belfast, making a small amount of stops along the way. There were a few small towns to look at along the way and some coastline, but otherwise it was the standard grass countryside for the majority of the trip. I took my passport just in case it was needed at the other end, but you are free to come and go as you please it would seem.
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| Queen's Bridge. |
From the station we set off to the Titanic Quarter which, as you might have guessed, was where they built the Titanic, and some other similarly unsuccessful ships. The area now contains one large building called the Titanic Belfast Experience, the self guided tour included:
- A history of ship building in Belfast
- The construction of Titanic
- A fairly pointless slow cart ride showing what it was like for workers during construction
- The launch of Titanic
- A strangely quick transition into the sinking and rescue of Titanic
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| Titanic experience. |
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| Cart ride. |
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| Some old book. |
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| All aboard. |
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| Most weren't so lucky... |
We got through the tour in about 1.5 hours, it was worth a visit. The next destination was the Cathedral Quarter, otherwise known as the city centre. I passed the Big Fish sculpture along the way, which I think is the first "big thing" so far, although I forgot to look for a guide to "UK big things". After walking down High Street and through Victoria Square shopping centre, an open air centre with a big glass roof, I found a Mexican restaurant and took a break at the Town Hall for lunch. As much as I love burritos (also nachos) they definitely aren't the kind of thing you can have every day - I usually prefer simple bread and fruit (and energy drink!), it's a lot cheaper too.
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| The big fish! |
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| The big this thing! |
I'm not exactly sure what the next quarter is called, maybe the War Zone Quarter would be appropriate. I started off by walking up Shankill Road (the loyalists). As you may expect from the British loyalists, there was Great Britain flags all along the main street, but otherwise only a few murals. At the end of the street the Peace Wall begins, which separates the two sides. There is a high wall running along one side of the street, and most of the brick wall is now covered in graffiti - a big disappointing compared to a visit to what still remains of the Berlin Wall (as of 2011 at least). We came out on Falls Road (the republicans) at the other end, which was about the same but with a lot more murals, and plenty of taxi drivers taking visitors around on personal tours.
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| Shankill Road. |
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| Peace Wall. |
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| Also the Peace Wall. |
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| Still the Peace Wall. |
Back at the city I found a small permanent market that had a second hand games store. They were selling a lot of GameCube and Nintendo 64 games, but they were all the common games, such as a million copies of old FIFA. There was also a general junk shop that had an old Atari 7800 and a Sega Master System! Besides being awkward to transport for the rest of the holiday, I wasn't sure if they came with all of the required cables and controllers - sometimes you just don't get all of the cables you were expecting...
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| Nintendo. |
I had a bit more time to look around the city, I tried to find a magnet but the only souvenir shop around didn't have anything good, they seemed to be selling Republic Of Ireland stuff than Northern Ireland - I should have got something when I was at Titanic Belfast instead...
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| Better than Sydney Opera House? |
It was almost 4pm and the train I had booked back to Dublin wasn't departing until 6:05pm, that left about two hours but it wasn't really enough for any of the remaining plans I had, which were all further out from the city or would be cutting it too fine for time. Instead we decided to sprint back to the station and see if we could sneak on board the only other train leaving before then, at 4:05pm instead. We just made it with a couple of minutes to spare, I flashed my ticket to the inspector and kept running so that he didn't have time to inspect the finer details - probably it wouldn't have been an issue anyway, but it didn't seem worth the risk, and we found some empty seats for the trip back.
I went to the deluxe gym again since there was a bit of rain outside, making it quite wet and slippery on the brick roads around Dublin. Jason decided to risk the elements and came off second best, slipping over somewhere along the way and getting a few cuts and bruises to his face.
- Belfast
- Tourist Rating - 6 out of 10
- Good
- Compact city centre
- Easy to bike or walk around
- Bad
- Back to expensive pounds again
- No good magnets
- No train or tram coverage
- Some places too far away to visit on a day trip
- Missed Out
- Belfast Castle
- Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum
- Cavehill country park
- Crumlin Road gaol
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