Belfast

This is day three in Belfast and the weather has really packed a sad. It is grey and wet and quite cold. Up to 30cm of snow is predicted for Northern Ireland later today although Belfast itself is only supposed to get flurries.

It is hard to describe Belfast in a word or two because it isn’t like any place I have been before. I can say that it is a Victorian City full of red brick and Portland stone buildings, monuments, churches and cobbled streets. It is small with around 350 thousand inhabitants with a further million in the surrounding districts. The people here are friendly, helpful and very proud of their city and its place in history. It was a great engineering and manufacturing centre but now has a downtrodden air. Despite this downtrodden air there are new developments going on and the city is trying hard to re-establish itself as a place to be.

On Sunday we did the city tour on an open top double deck bus. It was really good and gave us a good view of the city and its attractions, we visited;
· The Titanic precinct
· The Stormont (Northern Ireland Parliament)
· The City Centre
· Lots of churches and cathedrals
· The old prison and the Belfast Charitable Poorhouse
· Shankhill Road
· Falls Road
· Sandydown Road
· The Peace Wall
· Queens University

All of these are within 3kms of the centre of the city. The city is compact with lots of redbrick terrace and semi detached housing very close in as well.

Deidre went on a bike ride on Monday, the first time she’s been on a bike in years and she bike to Lisburn, a cute wee town outside Belfast and only 18 miles return. She never does things by half.

We are off to our ‘black tie” gala dinner tonight which should be fun although Deidre is a bit concerned about being cold.

Still no photos but maybe tomorrow.