Visit to Belfast - July 2009

I've just returned from Belfast where I was attending a conference. I stayed at the Belfast Hilton. This is the view from my room on the first evening. That's the River Laggan and you can see the historic Harland and Wolf shipyard cranes, Samson and Goliath which are now protected and one of them may soon have a restaurant at the top of it!
Here is my room, pretty much a standard hotel room but it was very nice.
The toiletries were lovely La source by Crabtree and Evelyn.
These shots are especially for Kaz! Yes there was a well stocked mini-bar and these photos resulted in the hotel trying to charge me £1.50 because I moved one of the chocolate bars to get a better photo! I wouldn't use anything out of a mini-bar unless I was really, really desperate it is such a rip-off.
Next morning I took another photo out of the window, not so picturesque by daylight! There is a lot of new building work going on in Belfast and it is beginning to look really good, but there are still areas of derelict land.
The conference didn't start until lunchtime, so I had time to go into the city. On the recommendation of a colleague I visited the new Victoria Square shopping centre and went up to the viewing dome at the top. You can see all around Belfast, the security guard offered to take my photo and insisted that we included the cranes!


A few pics of the inside of Victoria Square.

Further wanderings brought me to the City Hall, dominated by the Belfast Eye and Queen Victoria!
I was thrilled to bits when I came across Avoca, I have been to the original mill in the village of Avoca in Eire and also the store in Dublin, but didn't know there was an Avoca store in Belfast. Think sort of Cath Kidston but with more woollen goods! The pic above was part of the window display.
I also managed to find a craft shop. However, due to 'cabin luggage' restrictions I only bought one bottle of alcohol ink as it was a small enough bottle to go through the security.
Sawyers was the most fantastic delicatessen, and again it was frustrating not to be able to bring anything home. Taking this picture reminded me of the one I took of a similar display in Siena.
I would definitely recommend anyone wanting a short break to visit Belfast it was a fascinating place and the people are warm and friendly.