For once, we were up early. (Well, “early” for my family, anyway.) Alex had a geocaching event that she wanted to attend, because how often do you get to do something like that in another country? Besides, it would be at the Tim Horton’s. Yes, Timmy’s is in Newtownards. I’m still processing that.
Breakfast was in the hotel. Irish, of course. (A “Full Irish” is pretty close to a “Full English”. I suppose it’s really a “Full Northern Irish”, but it was pretty close to what we had in Cork, so…) Monkey came down, but Choo Choo slept in. It was an okay meal, nothing to write home about. The poached eggs were underdone.
The weather, despite being late June, was cool and overcast, threatening rain. We’d come prepared for this, of course – it is Ireland, after all – though it add a bit of a damper to the day.
Alex is caught between families. Officially, we’re here for Allen and his family (Aickens and Campbells, depending on what branch of the tree you’re looking at). So, in principle, we should go with him on a walk to a place called White Spots (no, not the BC restaurant chain), which is where the family had apparently lived at one point. However, it’s stuff that the kids didn’t have the slightest interest in. (If my parents had subjected me to a lot of family tree stuff when I was their age, I wouldn’t have cared in the slightest.) After some hand-wringing, I offered to take the kids into Belfast while Alex went off with her dad.
In theory, we’d traipse around Belfast. In theory. But I knew there would have to be one stop first: The Titanic Museum. Monkey had studied the Titanic back in Grade 7 (I think?), including making a paper model of it. And besides, it’s The Titanic. It’s legendary. It’s absolutely tragic, and the Museum doesn’t shy away from that at all (nor do you hear one note of “My Heart Will Go On”). But Choo Choo was far more enthralled than Monkey, I think in part to the sheer amount of information and detail about the ship, its passengers, the life in Belfast (also covered in some detail) and the impact of the Titanic’s sinking on worldwide shipping.
But first, we had to gaze at Samson and Goliath, the two massive ship-building cranes that dominate Belfast’s skyline. The last time I’d seen them was when Alex and I had been in Belfast and had walked from our ferry from Scotland to our B&B, a few kilometres away (yep, my bad idea). We’d been on the wrong side of the harbour/River Lagan, so while they were impressive, it was at a distance. Being up close(r) to one is … impressive. They’ve huge, but spindly. They almost seem impossibly thin for their size.
Not much further away, The Museum sits right next to the drydocks that were used to build the Titanic and its sister ships, Olympic and Britannic. (Samson and Goliath, though famous, were much later additions to the Harland & Wolff shipyards.) The drydocks have long since been filled in and capped in concrete, but the Museum has set up outlines and lighting posts to give you a sense of where the ship was and its size.
To be clear: The Titanic was duly named as one of the largest ships at the time. Most of the current cruise ships would absolutely dwarf it. (And having experienced that earlier this year, I can appreciate it a lot more.)
The short version is: If you can go to Belfast, check out the Titanic Museum.
It was 2pm by the time we were done, and we were all hungry. The Museum restaurant didn’t exactly appeal, so we figured we’d get something else in the area. Spoiler alert: there’s nothing in the area.
We (well, I) was temporarily distracted by the last remaining White Star Line ship in the world – the SS Nomadic. The Nomadic has had quite a life. Originally a transfer launch that would bring people out to the massive White Star liners (like the Titanic; the Nomadic was used for that purpose), it would eventually see a significant portion of its life as a floating dance hall on the Seine in Paris, its upper deck stripped off. Eventually the Museum arranged to have it returned and have been working to restore it to its original grandeur.
We drove into Belfast in search of food (but of course, I didn’t check any map to make sure I could find food). As with Derry, I had trouble finding parking. (Note to self: Never drive into Northern Ireland cities again.) We drove around and looked for the murals that Alex and I had seen on our first trip to Belfast, seen from a hop-on-hop-off tour bus. That was 2006, barely eight years after The Troubles had ended, and the wounds were still fresh. Almost twenty years later, it was harder to find the details – even Google struggled.
Also gone was the “Peace Wall”, a massive barrier between the twitchy areas that often had conflict. The gateway was still present, though the gates were gone, and the wall itself had been pulled down. We also passed by Crumlin Road Gaol, a particularly infamous Victorian prison-turned museum. Had we the time, we would have gone in, but that would have blown us well over our return time.
And then we saw an armoured police truck. And I don’t mean a beefed up Land Rover, I mean something that looked like it could go through walls. While it seemed that some of the evidence of the past had been removed, the present was happy to remind it that all is not yet well. We were further reminded a few minutes later as we passed by a particularly long street (Shankill, I think) that featured a “celebration” a few hundred metres from us – more Orangemen having a to-do.
We stopped at a gas station for anything to eat before realizing it was getting late and we needed to get back to Newtownards. Aaaaaand I managed to get completely confounded (again) despite Google’s help. I will happy take narrow country lanes at 80 km/h over cities with aggressive drivers. I was relieved to be back on the two-lane roads heading east again.
We stopped at Scrabo Tower on the way back, but only briefly – the kids both mentioned that Alex would probably like to go.
Dinner was at Lewinters, the hotel’s restaurant. It was okay, nothing to write a blog about. The only advantage is that it was close to our beds. And that’s about it.
After dinner, I opted to go back to Scrabo, but I went solo as no-one wanted to go with me. The sun had finally poked out and after snapping a shot from the hotel’s second-floor lounge, I drove back up to the Tower for a closer look.
It’s not ancient. It was built in 1857 as a memorial to the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry for … [checks notes] oppressing the Irish during the Great Famine and insisting on using child labour in his coal mines.
Uh huh.
So, yeah, the guy was a piece of shit and decided that everyone needed to know how great he was long after his death. And for some reason, the Tower still stands. (I’m guessing because people have either forgotten about the man, or frankly like the tower and don’t give a toss.) It’s a nice tower, though. Someone architected it well. And it’s got a commanding view of pretty much everything in the surrounding area. The views are pretty fantastic, including being able to see Samson and Goliath a could dozen kilometres away.
The only downside of the location, photographically-speaking, is the size of the space at the top of the hill. It’s hard to get a decent shot of it because you’re too close. In landscape would have been much nicer, but I’m pretty sure the marshalls wouldn’t have much appreciated me waltzing onto the adjacent golf course.
Tomorrow, we’re back to Dublin.
