If you don’t give a fuck about Game of Thrones
After visiting Dublin in February, we were curious about the capital north of the border, and with a great package deal on BA, we set traveled to Belfast this October. Overall as a city, it reminded me more of Liverpool than any other city in the UK, possibly due to the red-brick buildings. It was significantly cheaper than London and much cleaner too.
Now I usually write a bit of history about where I visit but I don’t think I could do Belfast justice or write it without making a grave mistake.
What I will say is the city still feels raw with emotion and division is clearly bubbling not far between the surface.
The impact of “the Troubles” can be seen and felt. In every park, on every street corner. It’s clear that on every road in the city, someone died, went to prison, or was injured in the late twentieth century.
The barbed wire still frames many buildings and entrances, and one part of the city gates divides the Protestant and Catholic areas at sunset. Every few minutes you are reminded that this was a place that until recently was at war with itself.
Belfast is also more proudly British than most of mainland UK (if anything it reminded me of Gibraltar). There were flags everywhere and more public tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II than I have seen on the mainland.
As Belfast is in the UK, if you are a British citizen, you don’t need a passport to fly there, just a driving license. It also means they use the same plugs as in the UK.
Day one: travel, a famous ship and some history
We took a stupidly early flight (7.30 – good thing we live near the airport) to ensure that our three nights meant four days in the City.
There are two airports in Belfast, we arrived at George Best City Airport which is tiny (10 gates) but also really well located – it was a 10-minute bus ride to the city (number 600), and that cost just £2.
From here we dropped our luggage and walked across town to the waterside, stuck our nose into the SSE arena (we would have gone to see Ice Hockey had we been staying the weekend as it has quite a following in Belfast) and tried to work out what the weird stained glass along the waterfront was.
Trip details:
Length: three nights.
Travelled by: BA flight to to George Best City Airport
Stayed at Hampton by Hilton.*
Travelled around Belfast: by foot.
This should have been our first clue: Game of Thrones. Now I am one of those people who will proudly tell you she has never watched this. It was apparent very quickly that this meant a good chunk of Belfast’s tourist infrastructure would be lost on us.
Stop One: the Titanic Museum
The Titanic Museum is the centre-piece of the Titanic Quarter – a part of the city which has recently been regenerated and now hosts a suite of entertainment, businesses, tourist attractions and a little housing. The museum is an imposing building, located at the centre of the dockyard and surrounded by a range of memorials and ways of visualising the loss which occured when the Titanic sank.
Your ticket to the museum gives you entry to two things: the SS Nomadic, the only ship by White Star Line still in existence, and the Titanic Museum.
The striking thing about the Titanic Museum is how little of it is actually about the tragedy. The museum is incredibly well-planned and is used as a very clever means of telling the story of Belfast’s booming textile, rope, and shipbuilding industries. It looks at the culture in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Belfast including how people lived and worked at the docks or related industries. They are also VERY keen to point out that the sinking of the Titanic had nothing to do with the structural integrity, building or engineering that went into the ship. There were however a number of issues, none of which could be traced to it’s Belfast heritage. Of course, there is some reference to Jack and Rose and that necklace, but it is well worth a visit even if you weren’t a fan of the film.
One of my highlights from the museum was actually the shop. The merchandise ranged from tacky (replica of the necklace that the old lady dropped in the ocean anyone…) to the damn-right distasteful (Titanic bath toy, anyone?!).
We also stopped for lunch at the Titanic Museum. I was skeptical about the ‘authentic’ nature of the halloumi fries, however, the Chicken Lasagne was very good (also not sure about how authentic to the Titanic this was, but it was tasty!).
Following this, we tried to go and see the SS Theresa (complete with some cracking canons) but she was closed for repair.
Tickets to the Titanic Museum are best booked in advance. Entry to the museum is timed, but you can visit the SS Nomadic either before or after. Tickets are £24.50 for adults, so it is not cheap, but we spent about four hours at it.
Stop two: belfast City Hall
We walked (about 30 mins) from the harbour back to the town centre and the City Hall. It is a stunning baroque building, with well-manicured lawns and memorial statues.
As a member of the public not seeking to register a birth, marriage or death, you can book a (free) tour of the building or visit the exhibition (also free). The exhibition was fascinating, but it was difficult not to make constant comparisons to how history had been told in Dublin when we were there. It was definitely interesting to see two sides of the same story in one year.
Stop Three: Some shopping
Belfast has a great shopping centre – it has all the chain stores you would expect in a major city in the UK lots of chain stores and some which you can no longer get on the mainland. There is also an obligatory Celtic and Rangers store, depending which Scottish football team takes your fancy. No shop however can quite compete Carrolls Irish Gift Shop.
Carrolls in Belfast was a surprise to me. It was the same chain we had found in Dublin and with much of the same merchandise that paid homage to Irish culture. Not Northern Irish culture, but Irish. I’d been indignant when at Epcot last year because they nodded to Ireland as a United entity and as one home nation. Now through the gift shops I can see how this mistake could have been made.
Day two: Murals, Troubles, Crime, Flowers.
Stop one: self-guided murals tour
The murals and street art in Belfast are exemplary. The only place that comes close is Berlin and the art from the wall. There are two main ways in which you can see the murals – through a taxi tour (these are usually provided by someone who was involved in ‘the Troubles’) or self-guided. In the interests of time (and getting in our steps) we opted for self-guided, using our trusty Lonely Planet guide, combined with a bit of Google.
Of the things that stuck with me the most, the first was the gate which is still locked each evening and divides the Catholic and Protestant areas of the city. The second was the outpouring of support for both the Israeli and Palestinian communities. There are a number of murals showing solidarity with Palestine, but the current war in Gaza has led to the streets in the Catholic areas being draped in Palestine flags and the houses in the Protestant area showing their sympathy with Israel. The best explanation of these loyalties I have found is this piece from 2017 in the Economist.
Stop Two: crumlin road Gaol
A walk around the murals can conveniently end at the Crumlin Road Gaol which is a brilliant restoration and storytelling experience. The museum talks you through the Irish legal system, what people were in the prison for throughout different twentieth century. It is brilliantly guided, so the story of the gaol flows. The range of videos and holograms help bring to life how the inmates lived. It talks you through different protests at the gaol which were conducted by political prisoners and shows how the death penalty was given as a punishment too. One of the highlights of the gaol is the cartoon explainer of the troubles. It was one of the clearest pieces I saw the whole time. This might say more about me than anything else.
Stop Three: Botanical Gardens
About 45 minutes walk from the gaol is the botanical gardens which are wonderfully free to walk around (this is probably reflective of the fact they aren’t the best ever). We did however see someone and their groupie filming a rap video in one of the glasshouses and by the rose garden (where everything was half dead).
Stop Four: Ulster Museum
The Ulster Museum is conveniently located in the Botanical Gardens, is free to enter, and has an eclectic range of exhibits, worthy of the British Museum. Perhaps we had been spoilt by the Gaol in the morning, but the video about ‘the Troubles’ in the Ulster Museum is terrible. It’s weird and revolves around a slightly creepy dynamic between an older man and a twenty-something girl sitting in the museum. Seriously, if you aren’t there when it begins, don’t wait 10 minutes for the video like I did.
The jewel in the Ulster Museum is (as with many British museums) not a local artifact, but an Egyptian Mummy. It’s bloody incredible that you can see the preserved body and really brings home what mummification does! Disappointingly, the taxidermy was quite tasteful and well done.
stop five: Books, Paper, Scissors
Opposite the botanical gardens is a lovely little independent bookshop called ‘Books, Paper, Scissors’. It does not stock hundreds of books, but ones which it recommends you read. Most were by Irish or American authors and many were pretty left-wing. They also had beautiful stationery. Worth the stop for a browse.
stop six: Queen Mary College
By this point we were TIRED, so did not give Queen Mary College the time it really deserved. However, the main building and campus are stunning and worth a quick look. The main building reminded me of a British boarding school and you could feel a busy atmosphere on campus.
Day three: Out of the city to explore the Giants Causeway
Our tour: Paddywagon from Belfast
We opted for an organised tour which included Dunluce Castle, some trees from Game of Thrones (pretty but meh), the Causeway and lunch at the driver’s mates pub. The tour was organised by Paddywagon (oh yes…), which you can book through GetYourGuide.com.* It was brilliant.
A couple of notes – the guide was hilarious, obsessed with the house prices in each village, but there was low-level matchoism which if you live in a Liberal bubble like we do, grated a little. He also has some great stories – apparently, the people who own Liam Neeson’s childhood home have a sign at the front telling visitors he doesn’t live there.
The Giants Causeway is really a site like no other, but as with all beautiful sites these days, the quest of other people to get the perfectly posed Instagram photo can mean you don’t get to see every corner of the causeway unless you are willing to join the queue.
If you have National Trust membership the visitor centre is free. I wouldn’t pay the £20 fee to the visitor centre if I wasn’t a member, but it’s worth a look if you are.
Day Four: market, a photo and home
Stop one: commercial square
Having been drawn in by cool photos on Instagram I was determined to find something to eat or drink in Commercial Square. There wasn’t really anything if you weren’t up for a pub, which in the morning I was not. Even when in Ireland.
Stop two: St George’s Market
St George’s Market is a bit of a gem. It is only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday and includes a bit of everything. If you’re a local, you can go and get fish, clothes dryers. If you are a tourist, you can get cool prints of Belfast (we got a fab pop-art image of the iconic crane) and if you’re looking for gifts you can choose from leather bags and Irish lace. We stopped for a great pumpkin-spiced latte at Drop Hopper.
On the list, but we missed…
If we had longer, we would have added two more things to our visit: the Irish FA museum and talk (about 1.5 miles outside of Belfast) and a visit to Stormont to see the Northern Irish Assembly.
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