Walking through Belfast

Being Saturday morning, we walked down to the city centre for a spot  of shopping, then down to the main Belfast (St George's) market, an eclectic mix of food stuffs such as fruit, veg, meat and fish; home made things like chocolates, jams and soaps, organic things like tea and coffee; as well as a whole area devoted to football memorabilia (swap cards, books, match day programs). Had waffles for morning tea.

Back to the City Hall, the centre of the city, to join the 11am walking tour. A group of 7 of us with an older guide. What becomes obvious in Belfast is that, try as they might, nobody is objective. Everybody has been involved or touched, if they have been here long enough to be a guide. They all purport to 'tell it the way they see it', but perspective is very personal here.

Saw a lot of the city monuments and landmarks, rivers, clocks and churches. Didn't learn as much about the causes and solutions as we have in other parts of the country, and we didn't get to see a number of the city's highlights, like the market (which we had done), dockyards ('the Titanic was built by the Irish and sunk by the British'), the inside of the City Hall, the Ulster Hall, Crown Hotel, or Shankill Road and its murals. We'll try to get to them tomorrow.

The story with the Crown Hotel is that is was taken over and renovated by a Protestant wife and her Catholic husband. She insisted that it be called the Crown Hotel, and he only agreed if he could put the British coat of arms on the entrance steps. Since then. everybody coming into the pub has had to walk all over the British. That's Belfast humour.

Had lunch at a terrific market in the grounds of the City Hall. Mainly food vendors with fare from all over the world, with some high quality craft stalls thrown in. One of the best I've been to, and very extensive.

Got back to the hostel about 4pm for a rest, then back into the city for tea at a genuine Irish pub. Unfortunately, we couldn't find one that was serving food which had a genuine Irish band happening (called a session), but we did get the pub flavour.