The train takes an hour to travel from Ballymoney to Belfast, which we have not visited for several years. On arrival, we walked down to the riverside and crossed over to the Titanic Quarter. There are several art installations along the way. This one is in Thanksgiving Square

and another, Big Fish by John Kindness in Donegal Quay.

The Titanic Experience is well-presented. You can join a tour or view it independently which is what we did. After wending your way around the first floor of exhibits you take a lift to the fourth floor and hop into a car which moves fairly rapidly in three dimensions with sounds and low lighting depicting the building of the ship and all the different trades.

The remainder is devoted to the launch, journey and sinking of the ship, the survivors, the inquiry and the depictions of the story in the media. I used to work in Stoke on Trent and Captain Smith hailed from the city. It now has a brewery called ‘The Titanic’. Outside is SS Nomadic, the sole surviving ship of the White Star Line. It can also be visited with the same ticket.

By the time we emerged, it was lunchtime so the nearby Dock Café which operates with an honesty box filled us up. It has a small art gallery and a prayer room for anyone who needs one. We then wandered back into the city centre and found Keats & Chapman, a secondhand bookshop at 21 North Street. There is only a small front on the street but the shop extends a long way inside with a large selection on many subjects. James found a 1930s Ward Lock Guide to Belfast & Northern Ireland. There is another secondhand bookshop opposite the Linenhall Library but it is not so well-stocked. We had no intention of seeing all the sights on one trip so the library will wait for another time as will some of the other buildings despite walking six miles in total. Here are the exteriors of the City Hall and the Municipal College of Technology.


The Crown Bar is well-known, dates from 1849 and fantastically decorated inside and out.


We could not resist a cold beer. You could spend a whole day just looking at street art and graffiti for example and we did not get as far as the Botanic Gardens, the Museum and Art Gallery, the cathedrals. It was soon time to get our train before the mass commuter exodus.