The North’s largest city by a long way, with a inhabitants of some 270,000 in the internal city rising to 600,000 across its wider metropolitan area, Belfast has a pace and bustle you’ll discover nowhere else in Northern Ireland. For many, nonetheless, the city will always be remembered as the main focus of the Troublesthat dominated Northern Eire’s politics for almost three decades from the late Sixties and scarred so many lives. Indeed, as the North continues to come back to phrases with the aftermath of the peace process, instigated by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the city stays in some ways on a knife’s edge, always expecting some new predicament to emerge.
In appearance Belfast carefully resembles Liverpool, Glasgow or every other industrial port across the water, and, equally, its largely defunct docklands– in which, famously, the Titanic was constructed – are undergoing large redevelopment. Although the city centre is still characterised by numerous elegant Victorian buildings, there’s been an enormous transformation here, too, not least within the higher prosperity of the shopping streets leading northwards from the hub of Belfast life, Donegall Square. But financial improvement is just not mirrored in every facet of Belfast life. Some areas of the city display obvious financial decline, most notably North Belfast and the once-thriving so-called Golden Mile (now little more than a silver two hundred yards at each finish). On week-nights the city centre can resemble a ghost town, though there’s little question that Belfast continues to thrive culturally. Theatre and the visual arts are flourishing, and there are plenty of places to catch the city’s booming traditional-music scene.
A few days are enough to get a really feel for the city, although it is a good base from which to visit virtually wherever else in the North. In the city centre, concentrate on the glories resulting from the Industrial Revolution – grandiose architecture and magnificent Victorian pubs – and the rejuvenated space from Ann Street to Donegall Street now known as the Cathedral quarter. To the south lies Queen’s University and the in depth collections of the Ulster Museum, set in the grounds of the Botanic Gardens. A climb up Cave Hill, a few miles to the north, rewards you with marvellous views of the city spread out across the curve of its natural harbour, Belfast Lough. The River Lagan flows towards Belfast Lough alongside the japanese side of the city centre and gives riverside walks, and is also the main focus for the most radical development in the previous few years, the Laganside, centered on the Waterfront Hall and the Odyssey Complex throughout the water. In East Belfast, across the river past the great cranes of the Harland & Wolff shipyard, lies suburbia and very little of interest apart from Stormont, the former Northern Irish parliament and residential to the fashionable Assembly. The city’s once-formidable security presence and fortifications are actually virtually invisible, however the iron blockade known as the Peace Line still bisects the Catholic and Protestant communities of West Belfast, a grim physical reminder of the city’s and country’s sectarian divisions – and there are certain flashpoints such as the Quick Strand in East Belfast and North Belfast’s Ardoyne area that it is still inadvisable to visit.
Belfast has a broad range of accommodation, particularly on the top end of the market. Nonetheless, there’s still a relative dearth of budget places. A lot of the city’s lodging is concentrated round Nice Victoria Street and south of the centre in the university quarter, particularly on and around Botanic Avenue and within the network of streets running between the Malone and Lisburn roads. Many hotels and visitorhouses are geared towards enterprise travellers and so often supply significant reductions for weekfinish breaks; most hotels supply free wi-fi.
Eating out in Belfast is very much a movable feast with new places popping up and others vanishing or relocating. There are many options for meals through the day in the centre and on the southern end of the Golden Mile, starting from new cafés (many of which within the city centre keep open till 8.30pm on Thurs nights) to traditional pubs (which usually only serve lunch but in some cases continue providing meals until 9pm).
Many of the city’s well-established eating places are round Donegall Square or within the university area. Bear in mind that they are often fully booked on Friday and Saturday evenings, so reserving a table’s essential unless you’re prepared to eat early. There’s a fair selection of delicacies, from trendy Irish and European, with French and Italian especially standard, to a smattering of Indian and East Asian restaurants. Standards are usually high and often exceptionally good worth for money. The selection is limited for vegetarians however many places embrace veggie options on their menus.
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