Around Belfast

I went to Belfast because I wanted to go to the Titanic Museum. I didn’t know much about Belfast, before going, other than movies I’d seen about The Troubles. When my friend Trista told me there was a park dedicated to C. S. Lewis, I added that to my list. But I didn’t have anything else planned. I did what I did for Galway, and looked into tours – I really wanted to see Tollymore Forest, but I didn’t want to drive/rent a car… and I found a Game of Thrones tour that would take me down to Tollymore Forest for a few hours. That would have to do! I signed up for it (spoilers: the driver got sick and they had to cancel the tour; I could have gone on another of the same one but I’d have to get down to Dublin to do it, and all that travel just seemed like a mess).

I wound up falling in love with Belfast, and I would go there again in a heartbeat. Let’s start with the view out of my hotel room….

And then move on to the architecture…

I loved all the buildings, but wanted especially to point out this church focused on the Deaf Community –

Street scenes…

And then there was this, that I saw from a cab ride. Yes, I absolutely found it again, while walking later, so I could get some better pictures (I’ll put those in a future post).

Oh! Oh! I almost forgot…! I found the pub I would get a drink in every damn day, if I lived there. When I got a tattoo that afternoon, the receptionist asked me where I was staying and if I’d found any good pubs close. I told her where I was staying, but that I was a little wary of going into a pub alone because I didn’t want to look like An American Idiot. She told me about The Crown Bar, which was right up the block from my hotel (literally – I could see it when I walked out the front door of my hotel, and in fact had already passed it a couple of times to get to the Tesco down the next block!). She suggested I go there (and suggested that when the place started to clear out that I follow anyone walking around the corner who was carrying an instrument because there was a smaller, after-hours mostly-locals pub with live jam sessions every night) (unfortunately I was tired and went to bed before that happened).

Did I mention I’d go back to Belfast any time? I would. This is just the start of my Belfast posts… I hope through what I write and show that you’ll fall in love with it as much as I did.