July 17, 2018 – Belfast, Ireland. We’ve got that sinking feeling

Welcome to Belfast, Capital of Northern Ireland and home to the Titanic

Being the Titanic nut today’s theme had to be about the Titanic. We started off our day by catching a bus to the Harland and Wolff shipyards where Titanic was built over 100 years ago.

Two of the cranes used by Harland and Wolfe to build ships

A portion of the Harland and Wolff site has been set aside as a museum dedicated to the Titanic. The building is in the shape of four ship hulls, representing Titanic and her two sister ships, Olympic and Britannic. I believe the fourth hull was to represent the Lusitania but that is only a guess.

 The Titanic museum

So, let’s start the tour

It was on this spot where the hull of the Titanic was built. It took two years from 1909 to 1911 to build the hull which was launched on May 31, 1911, possibly at 12:12pm

The slip on the left was were Titanic was born

OK, last photo of empty space

The Titanic was built for The White Star line. This company is no longer around, having been purchased by Cunard. Only one ship remains still flying the White Star flag and that is the Normatic. This ship was built at the same time as Titanic and was meant as a tender for her. She was only used once for this purpose of tendering first and second class passengers to Titanic in Cherbourg France. The port there being too small for Titanic. Touring this ship was like stepping back into the era of trans-Atlantic travel in the early 1900’s

The Normatic

Every tender needs a champagne bar of course

And of course, someone to steer the ship (we should probably be facing the other way though)

I’m the King of the World!

Not quite the Grand Staircase on the Titanic, but close.

OK, we’re done with the Titanic

Next, we jumped on the local Hop On, Hop Off bus to tour Belfast

As I mentioned, Belfast is the Capital of Northern Ireland, so our first stop was the parliament buildings. Our guide mentioned that before entering the grounds, security would check the bus and may have some people removed. Even though it has been relatively peaceful for over 30 years, there are still tensions simmering.

The Parliament Building

Unfortunately, as we spent so much time at the Titanic museum, we were not able to get off the bus to tour any sites, but we did take pictures from the top of our double decker bus.

A number of buildings in Belfast have murals painted on them

Yes, I know, it’s of the Titanic again, Sorry.

Some of our family are into the series, Game of Thrones. Below is the studio where it is filmed.

And this picture is for my daughter, Sabrina who just graduated from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario

And one last picture to end this day. We all know that Ireland is known for their pubs and of course their beer. I guess because of that the sign below is posted in several locations throughout Belfast.

But then again, who reads signs.