Day 4 - Belfast

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We travelled by train from Dublin to Belfast today; 2 hours and 7 minutes on the N. Ireland Translink. A very comfortable ride with food and beverage services, Wi-Fi on board (only worked for the first half hour though) and wonderfully pleasant staff. It was a beautiful ride along the coast most of the way with only three 5-minute stops at Drogheda, Dundalk and Newry before arriving at Belfast Central Station.

Our hotel, the Wellington Park, was only a 5 minute, 4.30 GBP ride from the station. This hotel is a little more modern than the one in Dublin and a little cheaper. In fact, everything seems cheaper in Belfast. After arriving, we walked downtown towards City Hall and the tourist shopping district. It seemed that half of the apartments, store-fronts and offices were empty and for rent. Good roads and sidewalks, lots of trees and BEAUTIFUL Victorian architecture everywhere, alongside newer buildings. It gives the impression that anything that was war damaged during "the troubles" was rebuilt in-between the older buildings.

The City Hall building is spectacular and huge, old churches are everywhere. Many of the apartment buildings and office buildings are very ornate and still in great condition even though they appear to be quite old. It was only a short, 10 minute walk to downtown and there were dozens of people laying around or seated on the lawn in front of city hall watching a soccer game on a big screen. We also met lots of people wearing various team jerseys and wearing event passes for the World Police and Fire Games. We're planning on attending a hockey game Tuesday evening between the RCMP Buffaloes and a Helsinki team. I sure never expected to watch Canadian hockey here in Ireland!

We had supper at Maggie May's, a little restaurant next to Queens University and the Botanic Gardens. I had the Beef Stew which was cheap and a wonderfully authentic Irish dish and Banoffee pie for dessert (another traditional Northern Irish dish which is a pie of crushed bananas with toffee served with fresh whipped cream or ice cream; very delicious!

Tomorrow we plan on checking out the 48 hour hop-on hop-off bus tour then we have supper planned with Patrick and Victoria and his parents who own the house in Portrush that we're going to in a few days.

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Photos

Lord Dufferin Memorial, City Hall, Belfast
The Most Honourable Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, KP, GCB, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC (21 June 1826-12 February 1902) was a British public servant and prominent member of Victorian society. In his youth, he was a popular figure in the court of Queen Victoria

Chinese army invades Belfast City Hall
The brightly coloured terracotta Warriors of Xi'an China stand guard for three weeks as part of the One World Creative programme.

Comments

[Shirley]

I'm enjoying your blog. Thanks for taking everyone along... I can be an armchair traveller. The photos are fabulous and ohhh that Banoffee pie looks and sounds so delicious. Noticed you have already hit an author related spot.