Discover Northern Ireland: What to See in 2024

Starting a series of notes on a summer trip to the United Kingdom and five additional countries. I’ll share where I’ve been and show you what I saw. The journey begins in Manchester and then moves to Liverpool.

Flight from Liverpool to Belfast. Travel time: 50 minutes.

The capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast, is on today’s agenda. Historically, the northern part of the large island of Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, while the remaining part is a separate country—the Republic of Ireland. There will be a separate article about the latter.

What to Do in Belfast

You can comfortably get from the airport to the city center by bus for £3. After studying the route to the center, we found that the Titanic Museum is on the way, not far from the airport.

So my introduction to the city began with the museum. The building itself—a modern glass structure—is located away from the bay but attracts attention with its appearance.

Walking along the waterfront to the museum, we encountered several sailing ships anchored along the way. There was nothing unusual, but it was still surprising.

We bought tickets online in advance and decided to start the tour outside. In the dock in front of the museum building stands the Nomadic—the original transfer ship that ferried first and second-class passengers to the Titanic. It’s remarkably large but still smaller than the transatlantic Titanic. It’s unsettling when you imagine the size of the sunken ship.

With the single museum ticket we bought, we wandered around the ship, peering into each cabin (from the captain’s to the engineer’s) and climbed to the deck. Perhaps, this was one of the few things that justified the ticket cost of £21.5 or €25, or ₽1500.

The museum itself turned out to be quite dull. Lots of textual compositions, few genuine exhibits.

The moving attraction was memorable, where they take you in cabins through recreated scenes of the Titanic’s creation.

I liked the reconstructed first, second, and third-class cabins (how small people were back then!) as well as the deck reconstruction with a video reproduction of the waves.

At the very end, you will find telegrams from the crew from the moment of collision to the last minute of the shipwreck. I got goosebumps while reading them.

At the exit of the exhibits, visitors are met by the last hall-theater. The screen shows underwater footage of the Titanic remains at the ocean bottom. Another unsettling moment, as it all looks entirely different than we might imagine. Eerie and interesting at the same time!

After leaving the museum, we stopped by a cafeteria for tea, then hurried to the bus stop to get to the center. It turned out there are two transport companies in Belfast: with Translink, you need to buy a paper ticket via a machine, with the other you can pay by card to the driver. Only Translink, which looks like space shuttles, stops by the Titanic.

Having sorted out the tickets, we got on a bus to the opera. From there, it’s a stone’s throw to our cozy hotel, located in the heart of the city. I highly recommend checking in 🙂

As the sunset drew near, we went out to study the city genuinely, not just from the bus window. To my surprise, Belfast reminded me of low-rise America from the movies. Not that I had different expectations, but they were more “English” than American.

That evening, the streets felt uncomfortable: trash lay everywhere, bizarre noisy people dressed provocatively were around. Only by the number of LGBT flags hanging practically every 3 meters did we understand that a gay parade had recently occurred here. It’s as if the city plunged into chaos since the government took a day off.

The evening was brightened by the beautiful building of the Titanic Memorial Garden, elegantly lit in pink. We didn’t manage to get inside.

The Second Day or What to See in Ireland

At night, fearing we had already seen everything in the capital, we began to read where to go next and found a nine-hour tour of UNESCO sites in Northern Ireland. It turned out to be fantastic! I hasten to share our itinerary.

At an ungodly hour (at 8 am), we departed from Grand Opera, which we should also peek into. The plan was to roam the Irish coast, which greeted us with magnificent green meadows with sheep, goats, cows, and horses. It made us want to immediately move there and also start such a small zoo.

The grass is green, both vividly and in the color we are accustomed to

The first stop was Carnlough Bay. A great place to start admiring the small—a quaint seaside town where time flows very slowly. A few restaurants, boat rentals, and that’s probably it, the charming Carnlough. Walking along the pier, you can’t help but imagine yourself as a local resident living in this godforsaken place with such beautiful nature.

The second stop was at Red Bay Castle. Right on the road, there are very ancient caves where monks or hermits hid. They lived away from persecutors, sheltering in such unimaginable “homes”. Keep an eye on the cliffs when passing by this location.

Our third stop—Cushendun Caves—are caves where they filmed the popular series “Game of Thrones”. It brought fame to many places in Ireland, which are now the subject of tours. However, they really should be given time. Here’s why.

The caves, accessible to anyone, emerged more than four hundred million years ago. Stalactites and damp dark walls draw with their mystery like a magnet. At the end of the cave, a sunbeam breaks through, revealing a wild beach with seaweed and boulders. Truly an unusual place.

By the time we returned from the caves, hunger caught up with us, and we headed to Fullerton Arms. A local pub serving delicious food.

The clock was nearing noon when we reached the main attraction—the Giant’s Causeway. It is a natural monument of forty thousand basalt columns resembling honeycomb. At first glance, it feels like you’re in a movie set, so artificially does this natural monument appear.

Thousands of tourists flock here daily to sit atop the plateau’s highest point, gazing into the sea depths. Stones in the sea meet the bold onslaught of waves, forming a fresh sea breeze.

These long columns formed over 50 million years ago during a volcanic eruption and are considered a UNESCO monument.

Outpacing most onlookers gazing at the Giant’s Causeway, we ventured further to the top of the mountain. It seemed crazy at first, but then the climb up the rugged trail to the Bay of the Cow became quite plausible. From the bird’s-eye view, you can look down on the remaining people. It’s breathtakingly beautiful against the backdrop of blooming heather! And very windy, too 🙂

Look carefully, people are climbing this path from below

Advice: don’t descend and return the same way. It’s easy to walk along the mountain’s top and return to the Giant’s Causeway starting point. Considering tourists, the climb to the mountain at an average pace in good weather takes 30 minutes.

Another interesting location is Dunluce Castle. Now these are the ruins of a medieval castle built on a 30-meter cliff. Unfortunately, entry is not allowed. You can only admire the castle view from afar along the road.

The last interesting location of our trip is The Dark Hedges — a beech alley discovered by the “Game of Thrones” screenwriters. Later, this location was used in the 2017 film “Transformers: The Last Knight”. Nearby lived Irish people who had no idea about such a unique place with peculiar giant trees.

The alley now counts 90 surviving trees out of the 150+ planted in the 18th century. To protect the beech roots from cars, the street has been made entirely pedestrian. Now hundreds of people pose against the background of the beeches.

I highly recommend taking this tour or visiting all the locations independently. Such natural beauty is certainly worth the time on the road.

What Else to See in Belfast?

For those ready to explore the city further, I’ll continue sharing our itinerary!

Cathedral Gardens offers a beautiful view of St. Anne’s Cathedral. Then we headed to see the clock tower, the Albert Memorial Clock. It’s a stone’s throw from the clock to the River Lagan waterfront, where the city’s symbol statue “The Big Fish” hides, resembling a salmon.

Then I recommend crossing the Lagan Weir Footbridge and finding stained glass monuments displaying “Game of Thrones” imagery.

Nearby the monument, one of the many colorful elephant money boxes scattered around the city is hiding, collecting donations for different people. An interesting concept sharing the story of someone in need.

On the opposite side of the bridge, it’s hard to miss a giant metal woman with a hoop. Perhaps it’s one of the modern art monuments.

Later, we found the city’s oldest building—the Dirty Onion bar (I don’t know who comes up with these names!), open since 1680. In the Cathedral Quarter, a district of all sorts of bars, there’s a neon bright alleyway with umbrellas and inscriptions hidden between buildings. A very photogenic place.

For our farewell dinner in the city, we popped into a genuine Chinese restaurant with loud Chinese people and an authentic menu. I remind you that the details of cafes we visited are intentionally omitted, as the restaurant review will be in a separate article 🙂

The next morning, we flew to a new location after stocking up on cool magazines at the airport. I love Britain for its wide selection of print media, from unusual designer magazines to business books. And all in English. Isn’t that pure joy?

Start of this journey: read about Manchester, Liverpool.