Gary-Summer: July 16, 2025

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

July 16, 2025 - Belfast

Title: July 16, 2025 - Belfast
Hike Info : Description : Background : Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type:Touring

4.7 miles

Description:

Missed light

I must have been tired last night. I slept soundly, waking up at 6:30. I was thinking of laying in bed for a few minutes and then get up. We are scheduled to be down for breakfast at 8:30. At 9:00, I heard the rattling of the door and realized that I had overslept our 8:30 breakfast time with the kids-so had Sherri.

Before we go downstairs, we pack everything like we are going to move rooms as this was a one night situation. We moved everything into the kids room. Then we went downstairs. We discussed what we are going to do today. The Titanic Belfast Museum is the choice. But before we do, Rachel talks with the folks who operate the rooms. We get to keep our room for one more night. Yipee.

Sherri, Andrea and I start off walking to the Museum. A pleasant walk and our first real experience with the city. My impression is that a lot of it is old and a lot of it is still recovering from the scars of the Troubles where Belfast was almost a battle ground.

Old Custom House and Gary

Titanic Belfast Museum

We make our way down Queen St to Castle where we turn east. A little ways farther, Castle turns into High. Someplace we cross High, maybe to investigate a storefront. How come we did it was a minor mistake because when we get to Victoria, there is no viable way to cross Victoria on our side of the street, nor can we cross High. So we head north to Warring, so a black and head south ending up on High. We then come to the Big Fish. This is moderately interesting, but we are looking to cross the River Lagan on a pedestrian bridge to the River Trail. When round the Odyssey Plaza, I spotted a place called Titanic Desserts. I am wondering if this is the place. But we keep going past it,

Surprise finding Rachel's Friends

But not too far as the Titanic Belfast Museum. Andrea had bought timed tickets-we were a bit late, but without too much concern for entry. Seeing how the Museum funneled you through a narrow space, it makes sense to have a timed entry. The first part of the Museum has more background on Belfast. It showed the part which linen, rope making and agriculture played in its development. Frankly, the Museum really did not do a good job of tying this in with the Titanic. But things started getting more interesting explaining how widening and deepening some of the channels lead to the development of a thriving and world-class ship-building industry. There was one display which noted that the Wolff company, which built the Titanic had spit out ten large ships in one week. But then I started wondering, is Belfast a hub of shipbuilding now? If not, what does Belfast do now for commerce? What happened to the shipbuilding industry? Looking at the Wikipedia article, Harmon and Wolff is still a major shipbuilding contractor.

Sight of Titanic Dry Docks

But that is not the main point of this museum. It is the Titanic, afterwall. The exhibits walked us through what it was like to build the ship. This went from how the drydock was built to the setting of the hull-all 6’ of it. To the pounding of rivets and how the ship had a double set of water tight bulkworks. To illustrate this, there is a ten minute ride called the Shipyard Ride.

SS Nomadiac in a dry doc

Sort of like Disneyland’s Haunted House ride, not very scary to most people. I am not like most people. This car we were in took us past scenes of the foundry. By the time I got through the shipbuilding area, I had a good idea of what it took to build the ship. Even more so, I was left in awe of the planning which must have taken to organize its construction.

One interesting event happened while we were getting ready to wait for the ride. Two young ladies approached Rachel and greeted her. Michelle and Jess were friends of Edrees and they had stayed at our house one night during a Labor Day weekend. This started up a conversation which lasted the whole time while we were in the Museum.

By the time the ship was built, it was the pride of Belfast. When the ship left drydock, it was estimated that 100,000 people were watching-the ship’s owner did not believe in christening events. From Belfast, it sailed to Southampton to pick up passengers. This was in 1912.

Then it was out to sea for the ship. At first all was good. But a bit before midnight, a message went out saying that there were icebergs in the shipping lane. The exhibit noted that radio communications were not standard for ships and that the radio channel was meant for passenger communications rather than talking for important ship communications. The message about icebergs seemed to have not reached the Titanic.

A little before 2am, the ship hit the iceberg and issued an alert for all ships. The closest ship, the California, the radio operator had gone to bed before this. Other ships more than twice the distance responded, saving a great many people. Still many people, something like over 57% of the souls on board died.

The final phase of our exhibits was the discovery of the Titanic by Roger Ballard. Instead of using Sonar, he used an experimental method called Argo. When the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered, there was celebration, then the realization that this was a graveyard.

We got out of the Museum about 2pm. Andrea in particular was hungry, but I think we all wanted a meal to come down from the emotions which this Museum evoked. We found a place close by called Zizzi which served pizza. We got two: Rustic Sticky Pig and Rustic Sofia. Tasty. We also consumed a lot of water.

Albert Clock Tower

What to do afterwards? Andrea, Steven and Sherri were all ready for a rest period. But Rachel and I were interested in stretching our legs for a bit. I found on GPSMyCity an Introduction to Belfast walk. Rachel and I decided to do part of this walk. We re-crossed the bridge over the River Lagan.

This brought us to the photo op by the Big Blue Fish, a place of local note. When you look at the scales, they contain the history of Belfast. Then onward to The Albert Clock Tower, which we passed by on the way in. Beside it is a metal sculpture to world peace. Somebody has stenciled Capitalism Kills onto it. This is where Rachel and I depart the rest of them.

Our next stop is rather elusive. We go searching for St Mary’s Cathedral. Shortly afterwards, we came to a church. The label on the church is Belfast Cathedral, not St Mary’s. But as we continue to go up Donegall Street, we see a statue of a character we do not know who this is. But the sign says Kremlin and looking at the barred door, it says, Welcome Comrade.

Belfast Cathedral

So I am guessing this is an office of the Communist Party. But then Rachel looks it up and says it is a gay bar. Boy am I wrong.

We see a cathedral just up the road. But it is not St Mary’s. It is St Patrick’s. Not sure if there is anything special about this church. Still it looks impressive. We go down Carrick Hill in the general direction of St Mary’s. But I think our plan now is to meander in that direction and if we hit it great, if not, we want to get to the Belfast Grand Central Station.

St Patrick's Cathedral

But we were surprised to come across a statue of Fredrick Douglass on a street in Belfast. First, because I did not realize he had been here. Second because I did not know that the impact he had on the citizens of Belfast. On this later part, it did take about 170 years for this statute to be put in place after he spoke here in 1845-46.

We went through the Castle Court Shopping Center and when we emerged on the other side, walla! There is St Mary’s a street or two over. It has a simulation of Lourdes in France to honor Mary. It is a bit of a solemn place.

After stopping at St Mary’s we head on back towards the hotel. But rather than stopping there, we kept going about five blocks to the train station. There Rachel made inquiries about getting train tickets to Dublin. This is a no go-they only issue same day tickets. But we get some good information that the train’s seats are the same if standard or first class. I think she may have been contemplating splurging for first class tickets for her aging parents.

Back to the hotel room we go. I think we are all tired and get some rest in the room. Evidently Rachel is less tired than the rest of us as she has planned out our day for tomorrow. I am just glad I do not need to do that.

After resting, we get ready to go out for dinner. Rachel will not be with us as she will be meeting her two friends for dinner. The four of us wander around the area. Most of the places we go to have stopped serving food. But on some backstreets-why do I feel safe on these backstreets in Belfast? We found the Morning Star pub. Evidently this is a somewhat historic place as it has been in business since 1810. Steven and Sherri order food while Andrea are not that hungry. (We do mooch off of the other two.) Steven has a beef stew and Sherri has a beef and Guinness pie. Both are pretty good.

It was light even at 10pm when we left. We wander around about, going past the Belfast City Hall-a pretty grand looking building. After getting back to the hotel, I take a shower and hope into bed, falling asleep pretty quickly

Background

Kremlin. The status on the outside of the bar is of Lenin. Rachel went out with her friends Michelle and Jess that evening. Her friends were interested in going to this place called the Kremlin. Rachel knew what it was.

Extra Photo's