Belfast

Belfast is the administrative capital and the largest city of Northern Ireland. By population, Belfast is one of the largest cities in the United Kingdom and the second largest on the island of Ireland.

The city is very industrial, totally different from what we have seen so far  in the rest of Ireland. We had a night walk through  the city center, but the city was not so busy and lively as some other cities we  had visited before. 

  

We slept in a hotel near the center and the next morning we went sightseeing  around the city again. 

There you can see the brick walls which were constructed to separate the Catholic and Protestant districts, so as to avoid conflict. In the catholic part of Belfast, the West part, you can find graffiti on the walls with sentences such as:  "Down with the Queen!" (Elizabeth II),"Long live the IRA!" or "Long live Ireland!" On the east part, the Protestant one,  you can read sentences such as "No surrender!"

 

Finally, before to come back to Dublin we went a museum dedicated to the Titanic, called Titanic Belfast, opened on 31 March 2012. The six floors of the museum explore the history of the Titanic and the people who built the city. It also has a direct connection with the rest of the ship.