Our fifth port of call was at Belfast, Northern Ireland. My readers old enough to remember the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland will recognize that this was an interesting city to visit, to say the least. While Belfast is a beautiful and historical city, it was also – at one time – a war zone, and they do a pretty good job of presenting both sides of the city.
I’m not just going to refer you to the pictures and let you sort them out yourself… this post will be somewhat guided. So open the pictures of Belfast in a separate window or tab, and follow along here.
First, we took a shuttle from the boat / pier to the center of town, and walked a very short distance to our Hop-on, Hop-off bus pick-up point. This was at a shopping mall called Victoria Square, so we killed time in the mall until our bus came. In the mall, we found an interestingly named store, to say the least – DSC03308. After getting on the HoHo, it took us sort of back toward the dock, because that area is actually a tourist attraction now – the shipyards where the Titanic was built. They don’t build ships there anymore, but some of the old shipyard structures are still visible. See DSC03314 through DSC03317.
Next, we made our way to the Northern Ireland parliament building, called Stormont (DSC03320 through DSC03322). This building is striking because, unlike the British house of parliament, it’s somewhat isolated on a huge estate. There is, of course, a lot of security, but the grounds are large and somewhat breathtaking, in the middle of this busy city.
The next few pictures are some city scenes as we make our way to the “Troubles” area – the first sign of “Troubles” being DSC03332, which was a prison where fighters were kept during the troubled years. We make our way now to Shankill Road, a sort of ground zero for the troubles. The Shankill area is a predominantly Protestant working class area, bordering the Falls Road area which is predominantly Catholic. Pictures of this neighborhood start around DSC03335. I’ve included pictures of some of the murals and fenced off war zone areas, leading up to DSC03339, the wall that separates the Protestants neighborhood from the Catholic neighborhood. Pictures of the wall continue up to DSC03343, where we start to see some of the bombed out houses from the troubles.
What is interesting is, rather than try to hide the effects of The Troubles, tourism in Belfast actually shows it off. As you can see above, some of the bombed out buildings sit today the same way they were during the Troubles. Tour buses take tourists through the area. We have a lot to learn from this conflict, and Belfast isn’t going to hide it from us.
Murals resume about DSC03348, and continue until about DSC03353 (Marla also has some pictures, perhaps different pictures from a different perspective, later in the picture series.) Then, poof – we’re back in “beautiful” Belfast, touring a city that looks like any other ancient city. Some murals continue after this, notably from DSC03357 forward. Note the ads intermixed with the political murals. Also note the Sinn Fein office at DSC03366. After that, again, back to “beautiful” Belfast again, as we make our way back to Victoria Square mall and our shuttle bus and boat.
I felt that, even though it was a “hop-on, hop-off” bus, this tour gave us a lot better view of this infamous and historic city than any of the Princess tours could have. It was strange and eerie to drive through what is still effectively a war zone, and see the effects of urban war on a working class neighborhood.