There was a once-a-week Friday market today so I thought I’d just walk through on my way to catch the bus to see the Titanic especially since I had to pass by on the way into city center.
This is an historical building and market district. I especially enjoyed the many descriptive panels in one of the halls with dates, pictures, and some stories about the building.
The market itself was basically an undercover Flea Market with ev-ree-thing. Many different kinds of prepared foods; fruit-veg-meat-fish-dairy stalls; handcrafts; collectables; tools; stuff out of people’s garages; flowers. Basically the whole gamut of flea market goods.
I bought several savory treats from that bakery place and ONE cookie. That way it was not possible to eat more cookies than the ONE. It was all very good – the tastiest food I’ve had in Belfast so far. I ate out once and must have ordered wrong, and the rest of the time I’ve been snacking from the grocery store because it’s so convenient here at Stephen’s house.
The Ulster Museum in the Queen’s Quarter. It made my little eyes spin in my little head.
It’s like a mini-version of the MET in New York where they have some of everything. Here they have 1/100th the number of objects as the MET but some of everything: a few dinosaurs, a mummy, paintings and sculpture, a children’s art center, costumes, historical farm equipment, storyboards of the history of Belfast. Everything.
As you come into the displays the rooms are crowded and very full of very active audio-visual. I think they did it on purpose to make you feel the noise and activity around building a ship.
The back of the building. The design is pretty literal, but well done none the less.
Here the cement and grass areas all have several meanings in the story of the Titanic – the size of the ship, the number saved in each class, various other designations. It was interesting.
Standing at the end of the Titanic site you can look out onto the working shipyard and see that there is not much doing.
More audio-visual all talking at once with sound effects going off around every corner.
Then there’s more, especially around the construction process, and then the structure of the ship is finished, put in the water and taken to a dock to complete the furnishing.
Now everything gets quiet and elegant as they show the interiors. One thing I wouldn’t have guessed. They had no way to do laundry so they had to carry all the table dressings, all the sheets, all the everything that would need washing, for the entire journey.
A photo for scale, and The Captain. It takes a certain amount of built-in confidence to be a ship’s Captain.
The section of when the ship went down was maybe the best in how it made you feel the rising panic and then the enormity of the loss.
Between the Ulster Museum and the Botanic Garden we find a statue that says simply Kelvin.
LP: “The green oasis of Belfast’s Botanic Gardens is a short stroll away from the university. Just inside the Stranmillis Rd gate is a statue of Belfast-born William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, who helped lay the foundation of modern physics and who invented the Kelvin scale that measures temperatures from absolute zero (-273°C or 0°K)”
We have been in Queen’s Quarter for the Ulster Museum, the Botanic Garden, and here, the Lanyon Building of Queen’s University. Designed by Robert Layton in 1849, it made me stare.
It’s got a Gothic Revival façade. The wiki article on Gothic Revival (or Victorian Gothic or Neo-Gothic) is very interesting .. and forgotten in a flash.
This mural is the only one I’ve seen in this neighborhood but there are many more in the areas when the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods adjoin, along the Peace lines. More on this later.
Then I hopped another bus to see the Titanic exhibit. It’s right in place by the shipyard that built it, it’s sister ships, and hundreds more.
This was my favorite portrait, Niall Ó Donnghaile, the most recent Lord Mayor from the Sinn Féin party and at 25 the youngest Lord Mayor ever.
It’s painted by a well-known street artist and it has the brick-looking frame to imagine a wall. That’s his Granny in the upper right, and it has the name of his town, a political figure he admires, a Titanic poster because the town is nuts for the Titanic, and other bits I’ve forgotten.
(internet pic)
They didn’t all have the symbols imbedded like this one but the uniqueness of each individual was obvious from the artist’s work.
There’s a very political component to these flags on the lamp posts as you can imagine.
BBC: “…(He) said community consent is required for such flags to fly and that people should have the right to object to flags on lamp-posts. But the local DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson says he sees no reason to regulate flags on lamp-posts.
“That will only result in more flags going up.
“Have people learned nothing about the way these things operate in Northern Ireland? If you deny someone the right to do something – very often the reaction is precisely the opposite of what you desired.””
From out the bus window. I had decided not to bother with all the Titanic hoop-la but I’ve changed my mind and will go see the exhibit because it’s The Thing so ok, I’ve got time, I’ll go.
August 14 and 15
Recently finished with all of my adventures in the Republic of Ireland so click away if you might have missed some days.
Welcome to Stephen’s house in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Stephen books out his spare room with airbnb and he’s made a great success of it. Good job Stephen!
It was a long travel day – 8 hours on 4 different trains having to backtrack through Dublin. Stephen was there at the train station to pick me up. Nice! Here’s my welcome Irish Toddy. Nice!!
My first day in Belfast and I do what I like to do first – go to the Visitor’s Center and get maps and brochures then visit the town center which usually includes the Cathedral and the City Hall.
This is the City Hall and I arrived at the most opportune time since a tour was just kicking off.
…and an excellent guide. We heard the long history from old times to today.
They have portraits of the Lord Mayors each painted by an artist selected by the Lord Mayor during his/her one year term (in all the many long years there have been only two female Lord Mayors).
Those portraits were my favorite part since they all had so much character and told a story of the time.
A poster of the view you’re looking at identifying the buildings.
There was a line of text on this poster that I’ve been mulling on ever since. It talked about this building and that building as being evidence of the time when Belfast was (…important). I can’t remember it exactly but I’m sure to be back in the area and will take a picture that includes all of the sign.
I’m such a fan of public art and these are just random bits, not the neighborhood of fame.
Another one.
Stephen told me that the city is trying to paint over all the political ones, the angry, aggressive ones, which will be a loss I think but then I haven’t seen them. It’s in the plan to get there to see what’s left.
St Anne’s Cathedral and also called Belfast Cathedral, the big church in the Cathedral Quarter.
