Countrywoman’s Guide on tour - Belfast

I have to be honest and tell you that Belfast wasn't on my list of cities I needed to visit, but our best friends were keen to go, so we tagged along and here's how I got on...

SS Nomadic with the Titanic exhibition building in the background.

It all started as an idle conversation over Christmas and then came back as a Whatsapp message in January.

The thought of going to Belfast didn’t initially grab me, but a few days away with our best friends were on offer, which was enough to get my vote on the matter.

In terms of organisation, it was really easy, I got a list of things to book on Whatsapp, as follows:

• Aer Lingus return flights from Exeter to Belfast.

• 3 nights at the Titanic Hotel in Belfast on their 3 nights for 2 offer.

• Tickets for the Titanic Experience on Valentine’s Day.

All of which I dutifully completed!

After booking, I realised that a 9am flight from Exeter and a 7am return flight from Belfast meant we had to be at the airport at 7.30am and 4.30am respectively.

Dear reader, I am most definitely not a morning person and this realisation struck me with dread…

Then I realised that as Belfast is categorised as a regional flight, my carry-on luggage allowance was 7kg.

Dear reader, I am most definitely not a light packer and this realisation also struck me with dread…

I was genuinely starting to wonder why on earth I had said we would go, but swiftly gave myself a kick up the backside and concentrated on the positives.

Surprisingly, when the time came, for once I managed to overcome my ‘Last Minute Larry’ syndrome and pack the night before. My habit of hoarding travel sized toiletries most definitely came in handy, and I even managed to restrict myself to a pair of boots on my feet and a small pair of shoes in my bag. Mr W was starting to wonder if there had been an alien abduction…

Even more surprisingly, the scales weighed each of our bags in at 4kg, they were bang on the size limit (which was tiny for a regional flight) but 3kg under the weight limit.

In case you’re interested our carry-on cabin bags were as follows:

Mr W ROKA London Finchley Medium Recycled Canvas Bag

Me (Emma) Fairfax & Favor Hurlingham Tote bag which I’ve had for some years but was a perfect size.

Plus my ‘handbag’ which was my trusty Karrimor Rucksack, again an old faithful item!

Mr W also learnt that querying why a 3 day trip in the car normally necessitates a bootful of luggage, at 5am in the morning wasn’t a safe thing to ask…

With the luxury of a grown-up son as our taxi driver, we were dropped at the door of the airport with plenty of time to spare and enjoyed the airy space of an almost empty airport, mainly because it was stupid o’clock in the morning.

Once we’d been frisked and patted down at Security, we made our way through to sit and wait for our gate to be called and we were soon airborne on our way to Belfast.

Luggage, In-flight, Peace Wall, Crown Liquor Saloon

We must have had a tailwind as we arrived early after a flight time of 1 hour and ten minutes. As we only had hand luggage, we were straight out and into a taxi and ten minutes later, we arrived outside The Titanic Hotel, which is housed in what used to be the Harland and Wolff offices, who built the Titanic in Belfast.

As it was way too early to check into our room, we left our bags with reception and after a chat with William, their very genial and knowledgeable Concierge, we opted to book a Black Cab Tour of Belfast, which William kindly arranged for us with Eddie’s Taxi Tours.

We spent the next two hours, touring around Belfast, learning about its history - I think I can say that we were all humbled by how much we didn’t know about Belfast, past and present. Our driver was so informative about it all and certainly didn’t pull any punches about the realities of the situation. The realisation that there is still a 2.6 mile, 30m high Peace Wall between the Catholic and Protestant areas, where the gates are shut to prevent access every night at 7 or 10pm depending on where you are, was a real eye opener to all of us.

I’m not going to go into it further as I don’t feel like Belfast is my story to tell and I certainly don’t understand the ins and outs of it all, but I can say that although at times, it almost felt uncomfortable being a “tourist” looking in, I am really grateful that we did that the cab tour. We learnt so much and had so much respect for the city by the end of it that I was looking at it with totally new eyes and Belfast had certainly already made a big impact on us all.

After the tour, we were dropped off in the City Centre and went for lunch at the Crown Liquor Saloon, as recommended by our cab driver. The interior of this pub is absolutely iconic and was worked on by artisans who created the interiors of City Hall. It was originally one of the Victorian Gin Palaces and was restored by the National Trust - most definitely worth a visit. Foodwise - it’s a pub food menu with lots of choice on it, and our late lunch restored us after our long journey!

Once back at the Hotel, we checked into our rooms and then made our way down to the bar for some late supper and a few games of cards.

The Hotel has a lot of memorabilia from the original Harland and Wolff offices and the Titanic around the building, beautifully integrated into the hotel experience so it doesn’t feel at all tacky. Our rooms were spotless with comfy beds and nice bathrooms, which certainly ticked my main requirements for a stay somewhere.

For our second day, we were booked onto the Titanic Experience at 11am and after a leisurely breakfast we made our way over the road to the impressive building that houses the exhibition.

We had booked the White Star Premium Pass, which included a one hour guided tour around the area where the Titanic was actually built, as well as the old offices in the Titanic Hotel and really gave us an insight into how extensive the operation to build the Titanic was.

Over 3000 people worked on constructing the Titanic across a period of around 3 years. The majority of the work was completed under a 300ft high gantry, which was also constructed by the workers. We learnt that there were over 3 million rivets holding the plates of the ship together, all of which were driven in by hand.

The scale of it all is hard to comprehend when you’re standing outside, on the ground, wrapped up in a warm coat as the cold Belfast wind whips around you. Thank you to Mr W for being eminently sensible and getting me to put my proper coat on for travelling, we may have looked like we were the archetypal ‘country comes to town’ in our Ridgeline coats, but we were warm!

Our guide was extremely good at recounting stories that brought home to you just how much of an epic build the Titanic was. We were told that an electric lift was put in to carry the men up to the 300ft high top of the gantry to start their work, but as many of them had no electric at home, they didn’t trust it and preferred to do the 25 minute climb up to the top instead, in all weathers.

The amount of thought and detail that has gone into building the Titanic Experience is quite staggering, outside you have a route line set into the paving, which shows the route she took, with different coloured paving areas signifying the countries. There’s a line that lights up at night showing the entire outline of the Titanic, which is enormous and rectangles of grass to show the proportionate loss of life across the first, second, third class and crew, which is very thought provoking.

L-R Riveters, Build yard, Titanic model, violin recovered

Inside the level of detail and different ways of presentation carry on as you progress round the tour - with films, interactive exhibits, memento display cases and first person accounts bringing the story to life in a way that really moves you. Again, the insights into the history of Belfast provided at the start of the tour reveal that at the start of the 19th Century it was a hive of industry, with linen works, industrial fan manufacturing, rope makers, furniture makers and all sorts of industries thriving alongside the shipbuilding industry.

There is also a Shipyard Ride that you can take, which gives you a taste of what the shipyard at work was like and then you move into other galleries which take you through the build of the ship, the tragic sinking and finally the discovery of the wreck.

As you stand in front of the wall near the end of the exhibition and see the huge list of names of lives lost and the shorter list of lives saved, it’s hard to comprehend the scale of devastation for the families involved and ultimately for Belfast itself as it reeled from the highs of the launch to the depths of the losses in a number of days.

Prior to coming, I had absolutely no idea of the role Belfast played in the Titanic story, nor had I understood that White Star had actually commissioned Titanic and her sister ship the Olympic to dominate the third class passenger market of people emigrating to America for a better life. She was called a Liner for a reason, as she was commissioned to work the line between the two countries. The First and Second class passengers were effectively bonus fares and not the key target market. White Star hoped that by creating better conditions for third class passengers than any other Liner, they would create word of mouth market share and stave off their competitors.

Our ticket also included entrance to the SS Nomadic which is moored just across the road from the Titanic Experience. Although much smaller than the Titanic, she played her part on the story as she ferried the first passengers out to Titanic at Cherbourg, as the port was not deep enough for Titanic to come in closer to the shore. Again, beautifully fitted out, she gave an idea of the level of fittings that the Titanic must have had and it was easy to stand and imagine the excitement that the passengers must have felt as they journeyed across to the floating palace of the Titanic.

We were over at the Exhibition for nearly five hours, including a stop for coffee and cake in the cafe, so we were certainly ready for a sit down when we got back to the hotel. It was Valentine’s Day so we figured the eateries in town would be busy, so a meal in the hotel bar and more cards closed off our day.

For our last day, we decided to complete some more of the Dockyard tour and then go into Belfast for the rest of the day.

So we followed the Titanic trail round to the Graving Yard, where she was in a dry dock that took years to build to accommodate Titanic for the two and half weeks it took for her hull to be painted and snagging to be done. After her initial build on the Gantry, she was launched onto the water for the first time on 31st May 1911 and was moored on the river for sometime whilst the internal fit-out took place.

Then she was floated to the Graving Yard for her to be completed and then her sea trials took place, with her ill-fated first journey starting from Southampton on April 10, 1912.

The photos do not convey the scale of the Graving Yard at all, it’s really worth a visit if you do make it to Belfast any time.

We walked back to the Hotel, carrying on past it to the nearby Glider Bus stop, the buses run every half an hour, depending on the time of day, and you can get a day ticket for £5 for an adult or a single journey from the hotel was about £1.80 so it’s a great way to get around.

St George’s Market

Our first stop was St George’s Market and oh how this place made us wish we had been in self-catering accommodation and staying for longer! It’s a huge undercover market and the food on offer to buy and take home and consume on the premises looked and smelt so delicious. The freshest of fish, the tastiest of traditional Irish food, interspersed with craft stalls and souvenirs. Absolutely worth a visit if you’re in Belfast.

Next, we wanted to explore the city a bit more and find some traditional Irish bars. A list from a friend with relatives in Belfast gave us their favourites and so we set out to find Kelly’s Cellars, browsing some shops on the way.

Kelly’s has been around since the 16th Century and when you walk in, it’s like you’ve been transported back a few hundred years, there’s certainly no frills and fripperies to Kelly’s but that’s exactly why it’s so charming. The Guinness was second to none, a coal fire burned in a small grate in the corner and the food on offer is Irish Stew and bread - until they run out! Such a great place to while away a couple of hours and when a couple of lads sat down and started playing traditional Irish music, I was set for the afternoon!

Kelly’s, Guinness, The Ivy, Belfast nightlife, City Hall

We reluctantly dragged ourselves away from Kelly’s and walked to The Ivy a few streets away. We’d booked a table there for early supper and got to the restaurant in time to have a look round City Hall, which is just over the road. Entrance to City Hall is free - the marble lobby is absolutely stunning and they had an exhibition running, which we were also able to look round.

None of us had been to The Ivy before, and we nearly cancelled ourselves out of going there as our woolly hats and country coats didn’t look like most of their clientele. But we decided to embrace our eccentricities and as we were dressed casually smart under our coats, we didn’t stand out like sore thumbs!

We had a short wait for our table, so enjoyed cocktails at the bar and they were absolutely superb! I particularly recommend the Cleaver Club cocktail.

The menu is extensive and had something for everyone and wasn’t as expensive as I’d expected it to be, which was a nice surprise. All four of us ordered 3 courses and each and every dish was beautifully presented and absolutely delicious, with great flavour combinations. The menu is regionalised to a certain extent so, for example, I enjoyed delicious Colcannon as the side to my main dish, as an alternative to mashed potato. Lastly, Sheridan, who served our table was absolutely charming and her recommendations were spot-on.

There was method behind the madness of our very early supper, as we wanted to check out some more of the City bars, so after our delicious meal, we set off for the Cathedral Quarter on a bar crawl, with the aim of finding some more Trad bars (traditional music) and good Guinness. Having poked our head inside a few establishments, we found The Second Fiddle and grabbed some seats in the bar. It turned out to be a great choice with Gaelic football on the big screen and two sets of music from different musicians in the corner. Again, the Guinness was exemplary, but watching the Gaelic football with no sound was tricky and none of us managed to work out the rules, if there are any!

With a 4am start the next morning to get to the airport looming, we left about 1030pm and walked back to hotel, over a new footbridge across the river, and then along a well-lit path running alongside it all the way back to the Titanic Hotel.

An early call had us up in good time, and as we were way too early for breakfast, the hotel provided us with breakfast bags which we took into our waiting taxi, drinking the very much needed coffee as we sped along the empty road!

Check-in and security went very smoothly again and an on-time and smooth flight saw us landing at Exeter by 830am, and as a last hurrah we headed to nearby Darts Farm for a very good cooked breakfast with our friends, making it back home by 12pm.

By 3pm, we were snoozing by the fire with the dogs snoring contentedly on the rug - perfect!

All-in-all, our Belfast trip invoked many emotions in all of us; it was sometimes shocking to realise how little we knew about its history and moving to know how much the city contributed to the Titanic and other ships like her, both in terms of skills and tragic loss of life. I found Belfast inspiring and colourful, the vibrancy of the music and the variety and taste of the food was a real treat to experience and lastly the people we met were so welcoming. But it’s also a gritty city with a past that it is sometimes hard to comprehend with a fierce proudness of its people and their contributions to industry.

Thank you Belfast for surprising me with a thought-provoking trip that I will never forget.

PS:

You may have gathered that we walked our socks off over the three days, so I have to give a special mention to my Ariat boots, they make an appearance on the Belfast reel I’ll be putting on the CWG instagram.

This isn’t an ad, it’s an appreciation of a brand that worked well for me. Mr W got me them for Christmas 2023, I think they are Savannah style and I hadn’t worn them much, but decided that for this trip they would be comfortable, practical whatever the weather turned out to be and have a bit of style to them. They were absolute troopers and I would thoroughly recommend them, they were so comfortable and kept my toes warm!