Back to Belfast

Next stop is Belfast for more eating, touring, eating, drinking and eating!

Belfast, land of enchantment and leisure! Whoops, wait a minute, got that one mixed up with Tahiti. How about Belfast, the working mans town where they celebrate building a ship that sunk! Just funnin’ ya! Belfast is a nice city, rich in history and a friendly big city, well, now its friendly. We’re hanging out here for the next 2.5 days to get a good chance to see as much as the city has to offer. Going to use our old go-to transport system, HOHO, cause the city is pretty big and there are lots of things to see.

We arrived at the perfect time, right around 4:15pm so we can check in and then hit a pub for that refreshing and desperately needed cocktail. It’s a short walk down the street to the Crown Liquor Saloon, not the oldest but definitely the most exotic pub in Belfast. Stamped metal ceilings, extensive tile mosaics and trim, stained glass windows and inlaid wood panels adorn almost every inch of the interior, and most of the exterior! The pub also hosts “snugs” or little 8-10 person booths where one can enjoy their favorite libation in solitude or with friends, that is if you get there before 2pm. The Crown gets real crowded, real fast and today is no exception so we elected to have a drink and then go next door to Robinson’s Pub for dinner. We’ll try the Crown again tomorrow.

Inside the Crown

Griffin on a snug

Couple of Irish lads enjoying cigars

Had an early breakfast and off to Titanic Belfast, the largest Titanic exhibit in the world. The museum / exhibit is located on the site where Titanic and her sister ship HMHS Britannic were built. The museum is a great collection of not only the story of Titanic, but the story of Belfast in the late 1800’s. Most unique to this museum is that there are no relics from the wreck site located here. The wreckage is considered “hallowed ground” and therefore nothing from that site is in the museum. The tour through this exhibit took a little more than 3hrs so now it’s time to eat!

Back on our HOHO tour as we cruised through the city of Belfast. The tour takes you through most of the city so we can plan what we want to see tomorrow close up and personal. As Collette and I have been here before, we know we want to take a walking tour of the “Peace Walls” and the Shankill area. Chris, Sue, Russ and Lori have elected to take a “Black Cab” tour for their personal site-seeing tour of Belfast so tomorrow we’ll divide and conquer.

A white “Black Cab”

Probably seems a little fickle but visiting the sites where the “Troubles” were (and still are) is most interesting to us. I know we said Belfast needs to move on but this is such a significant part of their history, we want to get a closer look. As for those who say the Troubles have passed, you only need to see the gates that are still opened every day at 7am and closed / locked at 7pm to know there is still friction. A recent poll indicated that 69% of those surveyed are still in favor of keeping the walls to separate the political / religious groups. Maybe in time…….

Pedestrian gates in Shankill

OK, so not everyone is welcome….

Memorial plaque

Gates close at 7pm, open at 7am

Peace wall on the left

Guess the US isn’t welcome either?

Bobby Sands poem

Once again, we went to the Crown for drinks and once again we were confronted with the crowd. Not as bad as the day before so we decided to grab a small table and wait it out. Success! The snug next to us opened up so we could sit and enjoy our drinks in a somewhat private atmosphere. After a few drinks we decided to hang around the Crown for dinner then for a short walk to Belfast’s oldest pub, Whites Tavern, for a final nightcap.

Whites tavern was issued the first tavern license in 1630 making it truly the oldest pub in Belfast. From the 1600’s to the 1700’s the building was a tavern, hotel and later part of the Wine and Spirits Merchants area. Not much to see from the outside but very cozy inside.  Had a quick round and then off to the hotel. Tomorrow we’ll do our exploring and call Belfast done!

White’s Tavern

A local…..

Pretty much “been there, done that” for Belfast so back on the road to Dublin, our final stop on our 14-day adventure. Tonight we’ll go to the Arlington hotel for the dinner show, “Celtic Nights”. Mama-san and I have seen this a couple of times and really enjoyed the traditional music and dance, and the dinner is pretty good too.

Checked into the hotel, dropped off the van and went to John Gogarty’s pub in Temple Bar for lunch. This is another of our favorite pubs in Ireland, always friendly, always live music and yes, always good drinks. Good food, good fun and good friends really makes for a wonderful time.

Chris looking for the quarter slot..

Riding Irish style!

Our waiter

Tomorrow morning, very early, Collette and I head off to Brussels to spend a few extra days exploring Belgium and Holland, while the other part of the gang is going to remain in Dublin and do some more exploring of Ireland. Its been a really fun time and I can’t think of a single thing that went wrong or would change. For first-timers and even those of us who have been to Ireland several ties, it was a wonderful adventure with plenty of new things to see and learn. Going to need to come back one of these days……but for now it’s off to Belgium!

Not on the Peace Wall but still neat!

Leaving you with a few pics of the Peace Walls…..