Holiday in Belfast Northern Ireland

BELFAST - Since 1998, and an end to the 'Troubles', more and more people are finding out that Belfast is a great place to go for a weekend break and there is an excellent selection of apartments and accommodation for city breaks. Those who go for a longer stay invariably return. The city is sited at the head of Belfast Lough, and has long had connections with the sea, not least as the place that the RMS Titanic was built. The trade that went through the city from the 18th century onwards centered primarily on the linen trade, and as most of this fabric was made in the mills that dotted the Lagan valley, Belfast merchants made a fortune. Quite a lot of this money was reinvested in the splendid civic buildings that adorn the centre of the city. The City Hall is a vast Edwardian edifice that proclaims Belfast's place on the world stage, with its 173ft high copper-coated dome and four corner turrets, 300ft of facade, and all built with pale Portland limestone, this wedding cake of a building suggests the wealth of the city fathers. The interior is just as sumptuous with the great hall being decorated in three types of Italian marble, and the huge interior of the dome with vast swags, tendrils, and medallions of intricate plaster. The Council Chamber is possibly the highlight, if only to see the rough conditions the elected representatives have to endure. The room is paneled in richly carved Austrian oak, the benches are covered in soft red leather, the Lord Mayor has to make-do with a throne, and all under stained-glass windows and a crimson and white dome.

There are various other heavily ornamented buildings on Donegall Square, most notably the Linen Hall Library, housed in what was a linen warehouse, and you can tell this by the stone swathes of the stuff draped over the doorway. This is what libraries were meant to be like. Not the anti-septic, computer-controlled, stark edifices of today, but a hushed place of learning and contemplation, crammed with thousands of volumes by long-forgotten authors on hundreds of yards of wooden shelves. In the Members Room you can check the daily papers over an excellent cup of tea or coffee, or take the fine curved wooden staircase up to the Governor's Room and trawl through old documents and newspapers researching long gone, but not forgotten, ancestors. The copies of the Belfast Newsletter go back to 1738 and document life in and around the city from then until the present day.

Walking southwest, away from the square, you come to the Grand Opera House, now fully restored after several attempt to blow it up, the last being in 1993. The interior is all plush crimson velvet and huge gilt plasterwork elephants, cherubs and thespians.

Opposite is a Belfast institution. The Crown Liquor Saloon. This pub is such a remarkable example of late Victorian extravagance that it was bought by the National Trust who maintain it in the style that it was finished in, right down to the gas-lighting. When you go in you will doubtless step on the mosaic crown on the threshold, and the story goes that when it was being refurbished in 1895, the landlady, a loyalist, insisted to her husband, a nationalist, that the pub be renamed The Crown and an image installed. The husband, true to his word, set the crown in the floor so that all who entered would wipe their feet on it. Order a drink at the curved bar, sit in one of the carved wooden snugs with their frosted glass partitions, and tuck into their famous sausages and champ.

On your way east to St George's Market, pop in to St Malachy's Church. The rather unprepossessing exterior gives way to an exuberant interior. The fan-vaulting on the ceiling reminds one of a myriad of meringues, whilst the art-deco stained-glass windows give a lovely surreal purple glow to the plasterwork. The church originally had the largest bell-tower in Belfast, but the locals complained about the noise and that it disturbed the maturation process of the nearby Dunville's Distillery. St George's Market is a lovely example of a cast-iron and glass architecture where Belfast comes on Tuesdays and Fridays to buy anything from an antique to a piece of shark meat, listen to live jazz or take in an art exhibition.

On the north side of the square is the district called The Entries, a tangled district of alleyways that is the centre of old Belfast and riddled with pubs. The Albert Memorial Clock is the city's own leaning tower. The 113ft high clock leans 4ft off the vertical, as it had to be built on wooden piles because of the marshy ground. The situation became a little bit serious recently and the tower has now been fully shorn up and no further movement is expected. The same problem has affected the floor of St Anne's Cathedral, which now undulates in a rather eccentric manner. Stone from each of Ireland's 32 counties was used in the construction of the building and there are some lovely carvings on the pillars.

A cruise around the city in a black taxi can take in the trouble spots of the last 30-odd years. These taxis used to be the only safe method of transport around the Falls Road or the Shankhill Road, as private cars and buses were at serious risk of being hijacked and then burnt-out. However the Tourist Board operates a black taxi tour with drivers who are happy to give a running commentary on places of interest, regardless of their personal political perspective. The tours take in the usual city centre sights but the main interest comes when you swing off the main road and into the 'frontline' areas. Here you come across the famed sectarian art that adorns the gable-ends of dozens of end-of-terrace houses, and the first sight of one of these murals gives you a much better insight into the deep divisions between the two sides.

Away from these bitterly divisive symbols, and to the south of the city centre, is the peace and quiet of the Botanic Gardens. Close to Queen's University, with its nearby district of fashionable restaurants and bars, the gardens contain two of the most beautiful early Victorian glasshouses in Europe. The Palm House is a remarkable example of a cast-iron conservatory, built with the assistance of Richard Turner, who was responsible for a similar construction in Dublin. The central dome contains tall palms and cycads, while in the wings, displays of tropical flowering plants vie for attention with commercial and economic ones like banana, sugar, and coffee. The Tropical Ravine, which was built in 1887, is an attempt to recreate the sultry heat of a tropical rain forest gully, and can be viewed from a raised walkway all around. The sound of a waterfall fills the air whilst climbing plants hang from the roof, and the huge leaves of an Amazonian water lily almost conceal the waters of a pool. Outside in the open air there are rare oak trees, herbaceous borders, and rose gardens. A long way from the troubled areas elsewhere in the city.

There is a museum for every taste in Belfast, and the best view of the whole city can be had from the heights of Belfast Castle. This Victorian building was constructed in the Scottish Baronial style after the renovation of Balmoral having caught the public imagination. It was built on the instructions of the 1st Marquis of Donegall in the 1860s and given to the city in 1936 by his heirs, since then it has been used as a popular venue for weddings and receptions.

Near to the Botanic Gardens is the Ulster Museum. This is an absorbing experience containing displays covering 8,000 years of Irish life, an art collection with works by Pissaro, Turner, Henry Moore, and Stubbs amongst others, a technology section, and a permanent exhibit on the Spanish Armada. Of the 130 ships that left Spain in 1588 to invade England 20 of them were wrecked on the coast of Ireland and in 1967 the remains of the Girona were discovered off the Giant's Causeway. From this wreck and others came a fabulous array of Renaissance jewellery, gold and silver coins, ships' equipment, and armament.

In the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum is an intriguing look into life in Northern Ireland over the centuries. The most extensive part of the museum is the transport section, which takes you from the earliest days of the horse and sled, via the bicycle and the aeroplane, all the way through to the De Lorean motorcar. Of special note to the people of Belfast is the section on Samuel Dunlop, a Belfast vet who invented the pneumatic tyre. The railway section is dedicated to the network that eventually stretched to 3,442 miles of track and it was said that you were never more than ten miles from a railway station. The collection is housed in a purpose-built gallery, reminiscent of a Victorian station, and includes locomotives and rolling stock from all over the island. This is also the only place in the city that has a permanent exhibition on the Titanic, which was launched from the Harland and Wolff slipway on the 31st of May 1911. She was, with her sister-ship Olympic, the largest ship in the world and reckoned by various sections of the press to be unsinkable. This proved somewhat of an overstatement as everyone knows. Another interesting section covers the rise and fall of the De Lorean, and its charismatic 'owner'. The collection was put together with the assistance of the Short Aviation Company, who claim to be the oldest aircraft builder in the world after receiving an order in 1909, and still continue to manufacture aircraft in Belfast.

After all this culture, a way to unwind is a walk along the banks of the River Lagan. Over recent years the waters have been transformed from an industrial sewer, polluted by a combination of linen mills and heavy industry, into a popular attraction flanked by a series of prestigious developments, fashionable eateries, and great bars, culminating in the opening of the Waterfront Hall. This was all made possible by the construction of the Lagan Weir 1994, and now salmon and sea trout have returned to the waters, and angling has become popular again. The Lagan Lookout Centre overlooks the five steel sluice gates of the weir, and there is a history of the industrial usage of the river, where the great shipbuilding companies employed over 25,000 men, and a great view of Samson and Goliath, the two giant cranes in the Harland And Wolff shipyard, which tower 300ft high and are 450ft long.

If you walk south along the Lagan towpath, after about 3 miles you will come to two of Belfast's most pleasant oases. Malone House, standing in 100 acres of grounds ablaze with azaleas and rhododendrons, and is a fine late Georgian house that has an excellent restaurant. One mile further along is Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park, an area of meadows, woodland, and water with the City of Belfast International Rose Gardens at its centre. Here you will find more than 30,000 roses on show, all graduated in shades of the different colours, with displays from all around the world set in the eleven-acre central section. If you are looking for a particular colour, or style, and you don't find it here it probably doesn't exist.

Another place to unwind on the edge of the city is Stormont, and the presently defunct seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This 1928 Portland stone building stands at the end of a mile-long drive and commands the local area with an authority denied its elected members, and it seems such a shame to keep this imposing building in mothballs while the politicians argue amongst themselves. The castle is only open to the public by appointment but the 300 acres of parkland is available to all and sundry.

Dotted around the city are nine golf courses of varying degrees of difficulty, numerous swimming pools, and an equestrian centre. For the younger generation there is the Odyssey Arena, Northern Ireland's Millenium Project that contains the exciting W5 centre. This is an interactive science and technology exhibition that is enormous fun for all the family.

Irish tourist information

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