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Belfast Travel Guide
The North’s largest city by a long way, with a population of some 270,000 in the inner city rising to 600,000 across its wider metropolitan area, Belfast has a pace and bustle you’ll find nowhere else in Northern Ireland. For a lot of, however, 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 Nineteen Sixties and scarred so many lives. Indeed, as the North continues to come to terms with the aftermath of the peace process, instigated by the 1998 Good Friday Settlement, the city remains in some ways on a knife’s edge, always expecting some new predicament to emerge.
In appearance Belfast closely resembles Liverpool, Glasgow or every other industrial port across the water, and, similarly, its largely defunct docklands– in which, famously, the Titanic was constructed – are undergoing massive redevelopment. Although the city centre is still characterized by quite a few elegant Victorian buildings, there’s been an enormous transformation here, too, not least in the higher prosperity of the shopping streets leading northwards from the hub of Belfast life, Donegall Square. Yet economic improvement shouldn't be mirrored in each side of Belfast life. Some areas of the city display obvious economic decline, most notably North Belfast and the as soon as-thriving so-called Golden Mile (now little more than a silver two hundred yards at every end). On week-nights the city centre can resemble a ghost town, although there’s little question that Belfast continues to thrive culturally. Theatre and the visual arts are flourishing, and there are many places to catch the city’s booming traditional-music scene.
A couple of days are enough to get a really feel for the city, though it is an efficient base from which to visit virtually anywhere else within the North. In the city centre, concentrate on the glories ensuing from the Industrial Revolution – grandiose architecture and magnificent Victorian pubs – and the rejuvenated space from Ann Street to Donegall Street now known because the Cathedral quarter. To the south lies Queen’s University and the in depth collections of the Ulster Museum, set within the grounds of the Botanic Gardens. A climb up Cave Hill, a couple of 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 along the jap side of the city centre and provides riverside walks, and can be the main target for probably the most radical development in the previous couple of years, the Laganside, centered on the Waterfront Corridor and the Odyssey Complicated throughout the water. In East Belfast, across the river past the great cranes of the Harland & Wolff shipyard, lies suburbia and really little of interest apart from Stormont, the former Northern Irish parliament and residential to the trendy Assembly. The city’s once-formidable security presence and fortifications at the moment are 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 Short Strand in East Belfast and North Belfast’s Ardoyne space that it is still inadvisable to visit.
Belfast has a broad range of lodging, particularly at the top finish of the market. Nevertheless, there’s still a relative dearth of budget places. Much of the city’s lodging is concentrated around 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 business travellers and so ceaselessly supply significant reductions for weekfinish breaks; most hotels offer free wi-fi.
Eating out in Belfast could be very a lot a movable feast with new places popping up and others vanishing or relocating. There are plenty of options for food during the day within the centre and on the southern end of the Golden Mile, ranging from new cafés (a lot of which within the city centre stay open till 8.30pm on Thurs nights) to traditional pubs (which typically only serve lunch however in some cases continue providing food till 9pm).
A lot of the city’s well-established eating places are around Donegall Square or within the university area. Bear in mind that they're typically fully booked on Friday and Saturday evenings, so reserving a table’s essential unless you’re prepared to eat early. There's a truthful choice of cuisine, from fashionable Irish and European, with French and Italian particularly widespread, to a smattering of Indian and East Asian restaurants. Standards are typically high and often exceptionally good worth for money. The selection is limited for vegetarians however many places include veggie options on their menus.
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