Based on my sinus congestion and sore throat last night when I went to bed, I feared I would wake up feeling very unwell. To my surprise, while I still have some symptoms and feel a bit run down, I woke up feeling not half bad. This was fortunate because we had pre-reserved tickets for the Titanic museum at 8:50 am, so needed to leave the hotel around 8 am to catch the “glider” bus/tram. We booked an early time, as we’d read that the museum can get very busy midday with cruises and tour buses swarming in. It was still pretty busy during our timeslot (the first one of the day), so I can’t imagine what it would be like at 1 pm.

The museum was interesting and provided information about industry in Belfast at the time the Titanic was built, through construction, fitting, and launch – and then, of course, the tragedy and aftermath. Despite the crowds, the museum does a pretty good job with flow so, for the most part, you just kind of drift through with the crowd. There were a lot of cool interactive exhibits along the way. At one point, you go for a ride in suspended cars reminiscent of a carnival haunted house ride (but without the scares) that takes you through the steps of construction. The museum ticket also gets you access to tour the SS Nomadic, the tender ship that ferried passengers and cargo from the harbor in Cherbourg to the Titanic, since Cherbourg’s harbor was too small for the Titanic to enter.

After the museum, we headed back to our hotel in city center for a quick lunch (toasties!) and stop at our hotel room before heading to the meeting place for our afternoon tour. One of the recommended tourist activities for Belfast is to tour the two sectarian neighborhoods, to this day still separated by a “peace wall”. Prior to the trip, we registered for a tour called “Conflicting Stories” in which you’re led through the neighborhoods by tour guides who were alive and involved in some way during “the troubles”. The tour starts in the Nationalist/Republican neighborhood, led by a Republican tour guide. Then, halfway through, the tour is handed off (in the peace corridor) to a Loyalist tour guide who leads the group around the Loyalist neighborhood. We found that the stories told didn’t actually really conflict at all, but rather just emphasized different parts of the story. The consistent underlying thread through the full three hours of the tour was that many innocent civilians were caught in the crosshairs of this turbulent and violent time. In the first part of the tour, the emphasis was on the lives lost due to the violence of unionist paramilitary organizations. In the second part of the tour, the emphasis was on the lives lost due to the violence of the IRA.

The tour was interesting, but it was three hours of standing and walking. By the end of it, I was feeling pretty run down, so we hopped on the glider back to the hotel for a bit of rest and strategizing about dinner plans. One of the foods on our list to try in Ireland was boxty, potato crepes with different fillings. We had so far failed to manifest an opportunity to try this and were starting to run out of days to try it, so this time we specifically sought out a restaurant offering boxty on the menu. It turns out it’s not as popular in Northern Ireland, but we did find one just a 15 minute walk away. Luckily, one of their reservations didn’t show and we were able to snag their last free table and check boxty off of our list. The 15 minute walk didn’t sound long in theory, but in reality it felt quite long on the way back to the hotel. We’re in for the night now and looking forward to an early bedtime.

Today’s Highlights

• The engaging and informative Titanic museum
• Toasties for lunch
• An interesting tour of the sectarian neighborhoods in Belfast
• Delicious boxty

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Checking out St George’s Market
• Sightseeing around Belfast’s city center
• Moving on to Trim