Belfast is rockin’
Forget its troubled past, Jenny Friel finds herself on a Stairway To Heaven in the North’s chic, hip, friendly first city
PULLING back the curtains of our seventh floor hotel room in Belfast City and, gosh, but the view is just super. It’s early evening and we’re overlooking the still River Lagan, on the other side of the bank is the brightly lit SEE Arena, and off a little to the left is Titanic Belfast, a magnificently futuristic looking building with three metallic-silver coloured prows proudly jutting up into the skyline.
Hundreds of street lights twinkle in the distance and the tail-lights of Friday night traffic heading home across the Lagan Bridge wink back at us as if to say: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
The last time we spent a weekend here was almost ten years ago, so with the Brexit deadline looming and the constant, worrying chatter about backstops and hard borders, it felt timely to cross the border again.
Back then it felt as though there were just a handful of restaurants and pubs that friends and acquaintances were willing to recommend. It was a relaxing, if rather sedate, couple of days away. This time round, however, it feels like Belfast has seriously upped its game. First off, the city is now stuffed silly with award winning places to dine and live music booms out of most of the pubs in the Cathedral quarter, which our lovely hotel receptionist tells us is Belfast’s version of Temple Bar – rest assured, it’s an altogether classier affair where the drinks are still affordable.
It’s the weekend after New Year and we’re half expecting the city to be a little on the quiet side. We need not have worried, the place is hopping and the accents are from all over. Even the locals seem a little taken aback at how busy it is, at one point a middle-aged gent tells us how he remembers a time, not too long ago, when the streets would have been deserted at night throughout the whole of January, probably February as well, as people ‘financially recovered’ after the festive season. It’s taken a while and a serious shed load of investment, but Belfast really does feel (at the risk of sounding dramatic) as though it’s stepped out of the shadows of its troubled past. Of course a lot of its history is still conspicuous, as it should be – the murals, the Peace Wall, the palpable frustration that there’s no one in Stormont governing.
But it’s no longer the main point of interest about the place. This is a thriving, fascinating and very pretty city, which has taken us less than two hours to drive to from north Dublin city. Indeed, we end up staying longer than we planned in order to fit everything in that we want to see.
We stay at the AC Marriott hotel, which just opened last summer. Much like the restaurant scene, we could have picked from a bank of new affordable hotels to try. But we’ve done well with the AC Marriott, our room is super sleek and very comfortable.
Our first night’s meal is downstairs at the Jean Christophe Novelli restaurant. The French celebrity chef does not disappoint, it’s a great menu, well-priced and with excellent service. After our three-course meal (we were on holidays!) we are in need of a gentle stroll, and we’re excellently placed to reach the city centre by foot within ten minutes.
‘Walk straight down and turn right at the big fish,’ our waitress explains. ‘You can’t miss it.’ She’s right, the blue coloured sculpture of the Salmon of Knowledge on the Quays is a handy landmark. A few minutes later we’ve turned right again into the Cathedral quarter, where it’s seriously buzzing.
We hit the Duke of York pub, where Gerry Adams was a barman in his youth, and The Dirty Onion pub, where there’s really good live music entertaining the lively crowd.
The next morning we take a Black Taxi tour around the city with Billy our guide. It’s a fascinating couple of hours, from the murals to the Peace Wall, I’m pretty sure we didn’t leave a corner of Belfast unexplored.
As is often the way, it’s the smaller details that really stick in my mind – for instance when Billy points out the Ulster Hall, where Led Zepplin played Stairway to Heaven for the first time ever on March 5, 1971.
Or The Limelight, where Oasis played their first gig in Belfast in September 1994, the same night they learned their debut album, Definitely Maybe, had topped the charts.
‘The story goes that they put the instruments down mid-gig and went on the beer to celebrate,’ Billy tells us.
We get dropped at the Titanic Hotel for lunch, it took €32mil-
CATHEDRAL QUARTER IS SERIOUSLY HOPPING
GERRY ADAMS WAS ONCE A BARMAN AT THE DUKE OF YORK
lion to transform the old Harland&Wolff headquarters into this luxury hotel, but to eat in the gorgeous Drawing Office Two bar (where some of the world’s most famous ocean liners were designed) is reasonable and the food is very good. A great way to refresh before tackling the Titanic Experience next door.
This attraction has surpassed all expectations for visitor numbers since it opened in 2012, last year more than 832,000 people walked through the doors. It’s not hard to see why, it’s excellent. We spend about two hours here exploring the history of not only the world’s most famous ship, but of Belfast itself in the early years of the last century. By the end we’re shattered and return to our super-king hotel bed for a well-earned snooze. We walk across the city that night to James St, a popular bistro that has people waiting at the bar all evening for tables to become free.
After dinner we find Kelly’s Cellars, a lovely pub with an excellent duo singing and playing guitars and on the way home we swing by the Cathedral Quarter again, it’s still hopping.
The following morning is spent floating about St George’s Market, a Victorian covered shopping area with dozens of eclectic food and craft stalls. There’s so much to see and sample that we end up staying for over two hours.
Then it’s a brisk walk to the imposing Belfast City Hall where there’s a permanent exhibition of the city’s history. With the sterling exchange rates being so favourable, it seems silly not to hang around a little longer to check out the shopping. For some reason the shops don’t open until 1pm on a Sunday, but Victoria Square, with all the old-reliables plus an excellent House of Fraser department store is worth the short wait.
By the time we whizz back down the M1 towards home, we’re tiredout but delighted to have seen Belfast in such excellent form. We won’t wait as long to visit again, just let’s hope we won’t have to cross any borders next time...