39. Belfast Day 2

What a fitting finale to our time in Ireland. We had just 2 things on our list - we did them and didn’t add to them.

First up, we did the Belfast Hop on-Hop off bus to orietate ourselves and to get a glimpse of what is here to see, even though we knew we didn’t have a chance to see any of them for a longer period of time. However, the ride took us right into the heart of The Troubles arena. As we had both grown up hearing about the conflict on our evening news services, it was good to see what remains of it, for ourselves.

Included were some of the barriers, the high walls, the solid gates to both areas which were locked every night and reopened at 6 each morning, fhe peace walls and others aspects of this time.

Our 2nd item for the day was to visit “Titanic Belfast”. It was very cleverly done, extremely interesting and informative. It took us through the start of the boom of manufacturing in Belfast, the growth of the ship building industry and was combined with the huge number of people from the UK emigrating to the New World. It was an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the planning and construction of Titanic and her sister ships. The exhibition is on the site of where Titanic was launched.

On the way back to our digs, we stopped in at Belfast’s oldest family-run hotel for a drink and a delicious Irish Stew; which we discovered only today was just around the corner from where we’ve been staying.

We are now packed, ready for our morning flight to Scotland.

Today’s photo is the list of names of everyone on board Titanic when she went down. Many survived but the majority were buried at sea.

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