Saturday 9/28/13 - Belfast Ireland

We woke up at 6:00 today so we could be ready for our 8:00 taxi to take us to the train station. Paul & John had prepared a to-go sack breakfast for us since we were going to miss their wonderful breakfast. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier but Paul has a culinary background and the breakfast he makes every morning in fabulous and presented beautifully.

Today was the most hectic travel day of our vacation.
Taxi to Belfast train station
Train to Glasgow
Taxi to Glasgow airport
Plane to Belfast
Taxi to hotel

We did all of that without a single hitch. Everything went just as planned.

We checked into the hotel and it is very plush. Our room number? 313. More threes :-) Our trip is full of threes. And we live in 1306 at home.

Once we unpacked and rested for a bit we decided to take the hop-on hop-off bus tour of Belfast. It also gave us a good orientation of the city so we know where we are going to go tomorrow.

The tour was fun, although a little chilly on the open top bus, and the announcer was witty and funny.

Tomorrow will be a Titanic day all day.

Tonight for dinner we were going to go the restaurant at our hotel, which is very nice, The Fitz William. However, the hotel is directly next to the Opera House, and the restaurant fills with people going to dinner before the show. I felt like I was at prom night. Everyone in the hotel lobby and bar area was wearing the best, and I am standing there in vacation jeans and shirt.

So, the concierge was very helpful and obtained a reservation for us at another restaurant about a 10 minute walk away. It was called The Square. He said many people from the hotel have gone there and it has great recommendations. We took him up on his suggestion and when the time came we walked to find the restaurant. We of course do not know the area, and I was about to change direction and go back because we had not yet found it, and then there it was in front of us. We were so glad we came here.

It is a two story restaurant and the reserved tables are upstairs. Very nicely decorated and the staff was on top of everything. The owner (we found out later) even took part and he was our personal waiter. The food was wonderful. For the first course we had a chicken liver pate that was smooth and rich. For dinner Pat had the roast rack of lamb and I had the slow roasted duck breast, with orange glaze and cointreau. I do not eat a lot of duck because I have not had good luck with it in the past. This was crispy and yet moist, with wonderful orange overtones. Wonderful. We both agree the concierge did a great job in finding us place to have dinner.

ScotRail train We had an entire first class cabin to ourselves from Edinburgh to Glasgow.

uhhh, OK

Partial view of the bathroom in our room at the Fitz William. There is a bath tub big enough to hold both of us, and it did :-) And also a huge shower.

The Titanic Museum. We will be going there tomorrow.

The Harland & Wolff design and drafting building, where the plans for Titanic and sister ships were created.

The red building is the pump house which would drain the dry dock in a quick order.  Going on a tour of this tomorrow.

Sampson & Goliath. HUGE cranes and an important part of the Belfast skyline. Although they had nothing to do with Titanic.

The Belfast clock tower. It leans 4 feet in two different directions. Also, there are four clocks and they all show a different time, and none of them are correct. The tour guide said it was a typical Irish clock. :-)

Building on bus tour

Church on bus tour

Church on bus tour

The wall separating the 'troubled' areas. Some areas are more than 15 meters tall, and some now host murals.

A shorter portion of the wall. This part has been painted with murals much like the East Side Gallery in Berlin.

Building on bus tour. This building was heavily bombed during 'The Troubles". The two top floors were filled with the British police force until a few years ago.   

The Europa Hotel. This was the most heavily bombed building during 'The Troubles". This hotel is only three buildings down the road from where we are staying.