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Published: August 6th 2013
There are at least three "official" hop on - hop off city bus tours but the tickets for the red bus tour is good for 48 hours compared to only 24 on the other buses so we bought that this morning. We hopped off after just three stops at the Titanic museum. Much of the museum taught us about the economic history of Belfast and the importance that ship-building played to this area. The museum offered a variety of interactive displays and even a Disneyland-like ride through a ship-building experience. It was definitely worth the 14.75 GBP admission for the 2 to 3 hours.
After touring the museum, we caught the bus back to downtown and had lunch at the Kitchen Bar. I had my BEST fish & chips so far and my new usual, a Kopparberg Pear Cider. Garth had the Homemade Kitchen Bar Pie and Chris had Spinach, Cherry Tomato and Three Cheese Tagliatelle. All of our meals were great, large, and affordable. We're definitely recommending the Kitchen Bar.
Hopped back onto the tour bus after lunch to complete our tour of the city. The most interesting part of the tour was through Crumlin and Shankill road
areas, learning the history of "the troubles", seeing the "peace wall" and learning how fresh the violence still is in recent history. We were all surprised to learn that the peace wall gates are still closed at nights, and all weekend, separating the Protestant and Catholic sections to try and maintain peace. The area is full of painted murals with various disturbing messages and remembrances.
This evening we met up with Patrick and Victoria Campbell at The Spaniard pub downtown then we walked to The Potted Hen restaurant to have dinner with them and Patrick's parents Kenny and Sarah. It was a really great reunion with Patrick & Victoria and we all got along great and had a lot of fun catching up. Patrick's parents are really nice and incredibly are loaning us the use of their holiday home in Portrush for a few days.
We had wonderful meals at the Potted Hen; Chris had Risotto and I had rocket and Red Onion Salad and a Halibut dinner. I would highly recommend both this restaurant and the Spaniard pub - small but loud and fun.
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