After three weeks in England and Scotland, it was time for a jump across onto the other island of Ireland.  I took a flight from Inverness to Belfast as it was very cheap and way more convenient than trying to deal with a ferry and busses.  When I first started out on my trip a family friend had told me to let her know if I was every going to be in the area of Belfast as she had some relatives that would love to host me.  About a week before I was due to arrive, (I don’t really plan that far ahead usually) I reached out to the family friend and asked if the relatives were still interested in hosting.  I eventually got Art’s email address and we figured out how we were going to meet up.  I jumped on a bus from the airport, did a quick tour of city hall then jumped on a train to the southern suburb of Lisburn.

The city hall tour was pretty cool, with my favorite part being the portrait of one of the mayors.  Each mayor of Belfast serves a one year term and so there is a decent ammount of turn over each year.

Each mayor gets a portrait painted of them in the style that they would like.  There was a pretty wide variety of portrait styles from both the hyper real, to the artistic and hidden meaning filled.  The one I liked the best had the mayor in running gear with a watch on on each wrist.  A running GPS watch and a normal watch!  I thought this was a really silly but cool way to depict yourself for the citizens to remember you.

Oh and there was a Tim Hortons in downtown as well.

After arriving at the Lisburn train station, Al rolled up in a car donning a Canadian hat and having a Canadian flag on the seat.  I loved it and knew I was going to be welcomed with open arms.  Joan and Al were amazingly welcome and we sat down to a delicious dinner followed by an evening of talking and storytelling.  We had a great evening chatting about anything and everything.

The next morning, I headed into Belfast with the intention of checking out the Titanic quarter and the wall which separates the catholic and the protestant sections of town.

The train station I jumped on the train at, did not have a ticket machine and so I got on the train.  There was a ticket taker and I tried to buy a ticket but he did not accept card, so told me to buy a ticket a the station when I get off. When i got to the station there was no ticket machine there either so I felt bad, but ended up riding the train for free into downtown.  I got off the train and immediately got a good look at the two massive cranes once used in the shipyard that was once located there.  Called Samson and Goliath these two cranes were once used by the Harland and Wolff ship building company starting in the early 70s.

I then headed toward the Titanic museum which was going to be the first stop of the morning.

The building was really cool and the museum was also really cool.

It brought you through the planning, construction and stories of the building of the Titanic and how Belfast played a major roll in shipbuilding at the time.

The birth where the two sister ships Olympic and Titanic were constructed is outlined on the ground and there was a cool representation of what they may have looked like out there over 100 years ago.  I spent way more time at the how the ships were built section, watching all of the videos and reading all about how they made them.  It was really cool.

After spending a lot of time in the museum, it turns out it had started to pour rain outside which was not ideal.  Luckily, I had my dry bag and rain jacket, so the worst part was the wet shoes, which i got used to decently quickly.

The entrance ticket to the museum also included entrance to the SS Nomadic which was built as a porter ship to the large ocean liners.  In certain ports, the big ships could not make it all the way to land, so smaller ships were used to ferry the passengers over to the big ocean liners.  It is currently the last surviving white star line ship in existence.  The ship was used during both wars and eventually became a restaurant in Paris, before being saved by the Northern Ireland government and returned to Belfast in 2006.

They had made the inside into a museum, returning it to similar looks to what it would have looked like in 1910 when it was built.

After walking around the ship for a little bit, I braved the rain and decided to go for a wander through Belfast.  The harbor would have been a great place to run if the weather was better, but a walk would have to do.

I passed the reportedly oldest building in Belfast which is a bar.

as well as the blue fish statue which was something I was confused about when i saw it on google maps.

I continued to wander and eventually got tired of the rain and wanted to take a quick break.  I had been given a recommendation for one of the cool old pubs in Belfast and so i headed to Whites Tavern for a beer or two.  After warming up and drying off a bit, I continued my wander and decided to head to the wall which runs through the middle of Belfast separating the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods.

Now, before arriving in northern Ireland, I was completely ignorant to the conflicts that the people there had and have involving both religion and national pride.  I won’t get into it here but it is bad enough that there needs to be a giant wall seperating the two neighborhoods or fights and other forms of crime happen between the two groups.  Feel free to read a bit more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

Apparently walking alone in this area would not have been advised, but in the last few years things have gotten a bit better.  There are black taxi tours available who are run by ex military guys and they will tell you the story about the conflict and they also used to act as your security detail when entering this area, but in recent years this is not really required as much.  Since I was not staying in a hostel and didn’t meet anyone to split the tour with, I opted to just go for a walk myself.

Seeing the wall and watching a few youtube videos about the conflicts and what happens in that area on the 12th of July was pretty crazy and eye opening.  It became more apparent as I talked to more people in both Ireland and Northern Ireland as you got two very different perspectives when talking to the two sides.

I was pretty wet and cold and pretty ready to call it a day, so i jumped on the train and headed back to Lisburn for some rest and relaxation.  After some tea and some chilling, Al’s son offered to take me out to dinner, so he dropped by and him and his wife took me out for a solid dinner and some delicious beer!  He works in the tech field, so we had a lot in common and ended having a great night.  I really appreciated the hospitality and generosity and unfortunately didn’t end up getting a photo of the evening.

The next morning it was time for me to get out of Al and Joan’s hair and so I headed north towards the beautiful northern coast of NI.  I took the train from Lisburn to Belfast and then had some time to kill before the bus left, so I decided to check out Al’s recommendation of the Crown bar, which was more or less across the street from the bus station and had a really cool interior.

Everything was covered in wood and the booths had DOORS!  It was a cool place to chill while waiting for the bus.  After a quick beer, I headed for the bus and was on my way to the North coast, which is a topic of conversation in another post!