Belfast is not a very huge place. There are about 500.000 people living here, and it’s easy to get around. From most places you can see the green hills surrounding the city.

I take a walk 2-3 km. to Belfast Center around Donegal Square. Here is the City Hall, a very fine building from 1906. The locals have named it the nicest building in Northern Ireland in a referendum. Outside there’s a statue of Queen Victoria looking gloomy. Like she wants to tell who is in charge.

On the other side of the road you will find Linen Hall Library. It’s a library who has specialized in literature about the Northern Ireland conflict. There’s also a nice café.

Further on a little north though different shopping-streets to High Street. Between High Street and Ann Street you will find The Entries, some small alleys. This part of the city is the oldest of Belfast, but was ruined during WW2 and later rebuilt.

I head onwards for Queens Square and the Albert Memorial Clock Tower. This is the Belfast answer to the leaning tower of Pisa, except for the leaning is only a few yards, and quite impossible to see with your own eyes.

Further on to the other side of River Lagan. I cross the river via Lagan Weir, a walkway across the river where some huge steel doors control the water level of the river. On the other side is the Odyssey-complex, which is a huge entertainment-center. A little further out you can see the Harland & Wolff shipyard. That’s where Titanic was built, but nevertheless they still build ships out there.

I head back to the other side of the river, and the area known as Cathedral Quarter. Here is the largest church in Belfast – The St. Anne’s Cathedral – which they started to build in 1899 and finished in 1981. There is no tower at the church, but instead a very spectacular golden spire. A little further north is the beautiful Clifton House.

Now I head south again. On the long way back I pass the Grand Opera House. It opened in 1895, but was damaged by IRA-bombs in 1991 and 1993. Rumors are that the place was bombed, because all journalists stayed at the hotel next door, so they could cover the event without leaving the bar. On the other side of the road is the oldest pub in Belfast called The Crown Liquor Saloon.

From here there’s another 3 km. back to Elms Village.

Second trip of the day is much shorter. I take a short walk to the botanical garden very close to the university. A very fine park it is.

On to “The Globe”, a local pub with a good offer. “A pint and a meal” for 5 £ is not a bad end to the day.

“The Troubles” they call it – the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants, the republicans and the loyalists, between IRA and the empire – or how you want to put it. “The Troubles” now seem to be history – today’s theme is The Troubles.

I start up with a bus to city-center and Donegal Square. From there I walk via Castle Street and Divis Street to the catholic center of West-Belfast known as Falls Road. On the way I pass the concrete building of Divis Tower. The security-forces stayed on the top floors with a good view across most of West-Belfast, including Falls Road – and the Protestants area at Shankill Road. Further on I see the one end of the Peace-line – an ugly fence departing the 2 areas. Let’s hope this will go the same way as its cousin in Berlin.

Falls Road is a lively local shopping-street these days. But there are still plenty of symbols. There’s the Remembrance-garden for the “heroes” of the IRA. And there are plenty of murals, mainly supporting the hunger-strikers IRA-terrorists – or war-heroes as they like to call them – that died in Maze-Prison block H in 1981-82. The most famous was Bobby Sands, who was elected as MP when he was in jail.

At the end of Falls Road there are 2 cemeteries. One of them is called Milltown. Here the hunger strikers from block H are buried. After taking a look around here and lunch at a local pub I take the bus back to the center.

This is a balanced trip, so I also have to see the other side. It’s called Shankill Road, and is in fact pretty close to Falls Road – divided by a highway and the peace-line. As Falls Road Shankill Road is a local community shopping-street. There are murals here as well. These are about the UFF – the Protestants answer to the IRA. And there are a lot of flags around – British flags, Scottish flags, and Welsh flags – all the flags of the empire. They want to signal that Northern Ireland is a part of the empire – and not occupied by the kingdom as the other side would put it. One of the more weird murals in this area is one of the Queen-mother occupying one side of a Subway-restaurant.

From the end of Shankill Road I head back by bus to the city-center – and from there a no. 8 back to Elms Village. 2’nd trip of the day is a short walk to “The Globe” – and the good dinner-offer they’ve got down there.