Belfast - a Titanic Adventure!

Well, here I am, in Belfast! Belfast is, as I'm sure you are aware, famous for a couple of things. An obviously one is "The Troubles" [understatement of the past 60 years I would have thought!], and another is for having built the RMS Titanic... Most places would hide if they built the world's biggest ocean liner and it sank on the first voyage, but I guess the Irish are a little different... they celebrate having built the ship! One of their sayings is "She was alright when she left here". Another one, which I have on a t-shirt is "Built by Irishmen, Sunk by an Englishman"! Nice!

Needless to say, there are many Titanic-related activities in Belfast, the first of which was the Titanic dry-dock and pump station. The dry-dock, as they promote, is the last place that the Titanic was on DRY ground, and was where it is fitted out, engines installed etc, prior to the maiden voyage.

It's a bit of a walk [it took me 50 minutes from my central Belfast hotel], or you can take the hop-on-hop-off bus, and at only 7 pounds for a guided tour, including walking into the dry-dock, which is 44 feet below sea level - an attraction which has only been open for a few months.

As you'll see from the pictures, the dock was large [it was the world's largest dry dock when built], and the Titanic towered over it when it was fully fitted out! Enormous!

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures. The third-last one is the building which is the focus of my next post. the second-last one is a piece of artwork, and the last is a sign that includes that saying...