More Titanic in Belfast

After visiting the Titanic dry-dock and pump station, I went to another big an obvious Titanic tourist attraction. This is in the big building from the previous post. After making that post, I realised I didn't have many pictures of this one, so you'll need to use your imagination a little more this time!

This attraction is also fairly new [both of them are in what is called the "Titanic Quarter" of Belfast], and unlike the dry-dock, this is a brand new building, and appears designed as more of an immersive experience, with very high use of technology. The exhibits lead visitors through what Belfast was like from hundreds of years ago, right through to when the Titanic was built, and tries to give visitors an impression of what went into building the ship. The surprise for me was that after the first few exhibits and audio visual presentations, you are taken up to the top floor in a lift, and soon after that, onto a gentle suspended ride through the build of the Titanic. A really nice tough!

Without wanting to spoil the surprise, there is also a wrap-around fly-through of the finished ship and a video of a relatively recent dive onto the wreck plus much more. It's one of those things you really need to visit to understand.

Anyway, here are the pictures. The first is the building again [impressive in its own right!], the view out of one of the buildings and lastly, something completely unrelated, a big fish they are all rather proud of...

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...