Three days in Belfast

We enjoyed our stay at the Park Avenue. Although my car GPS navigation aid took us through about every highway and byway in Belfast before announcing, ‘You have arrived at your destination.’ It then promptly expired. I afterwards discovered a quick drive along a motorway and a spin off at a roundabout would have done just as well. Modern technology isn’t always the answer!

On-site car parking allows space for 250 cars but it was pretty full for most of the time we were there due to various functions being hosted in the hotel. Park Avenue is the closest hotel to Belfast City Airport and lies only 10 minutes drive from the heart of Belfast City - or a 20-minute walk. Near to the hotel is Belmont Road with its shops, Strand Cinema, and the parliament buildings of Stormont. Victoria Park with its expanses of water, ducks and geese are minutes away on foot. Buses stopping on Holywood Road just few metres from hotel take you into the city centre. The location is therefore quite convenient.

The hotel is a 3-Star Hotel and appears to have been recently refurbished for the décor and furniture are all immaculate. Our room was furnished with light wooden furniture and a variety of soft furnishings. We had tea and coffee making facilities. The bathroom was spacious and in good condition. Our view wasn’t exciting but from a nearby window we could see Belfast’s icon, the giant crane of Harland & Wolf’s shipyard.

The 56 bedrooms on 3 floors provide full en suite facilities. Each room is equipped with satellite television, direct dial telephone-some with modem connections, trouser press and hairdryer. The well-lit and wide corridors impressed me compared to the extremely narrow ones in the Lodge Hotel in Coleraine, which we stayed in next. The Park Hotel was also quiet as compared to the racket up to the wee hours in the Lodge Hotel.

Situated in the hotel is the Griffin restaurant, which is a popular restaurant, which serves traditional cuisine and offers good level of service. Breakfast was a mixture of self-service and table service. Rather than the traditional Irish breakfast I always opted for oatmeal porridge. Judging by the sweetness sugar had been added rather than salt – sheer sacrilege! The restaurant also boasts a collection of paintings by renowned artists including Markey Robinson, Marie Carroll and Graham Knuttell. We only ate in on one night and enjoyed a well-prepared meal and good service. The charge was quite reasonable as well. Belmont Road offered alternative restaurants, which we also used.

The bar, which I only glanced into, is styled like a traditional Irish pub. Bar snacks are available there Monday to Saturday.

The hotel has disabled facilities: There is ramp access to the hotel and all public areas as well as disabled public toilets. There are specially equipped/adapted bedrooms. There is a mini gym for the keep fit fanatics.

All in all I can certainly highly recommend this hotel.

Inside this hybrid of 1960s concrete and neo-classical architecture lurks 8,000 square metres of public display space spread over three floors.

The museum sitting next to the Botanic Gardens contains everything from the first mummy to be exhibited outside Egypt to collections of birds, insects, molluscs, marine invertebrates, flowering plants, algae, and lichens as well as an archive of books and manuscripts relating to Irish natural history. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s it had a permanent exhibition on dinosaurs, which has since been scaled back. There is also a collection of unusual rock crystals and the top-floor gallery displays paintings by British and Irish artists. Glass making in Ireland, steam engines, international fashions in clothes and the living sea are all covered.

We were interested in the exhibits on Treasures of the Armada. In September 1588 up to 24 ships of the Spanish Armada were wrecked on the coast of Ireland, with heavy loss of life but some made it ashore. This caused alarm to the government of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It put most of the survivors to death, with the rest fleeing to the safe haven of Scotland. A savage response certainly but if they had landed in England many of its inhabitants would have suffered a similar fate. Gleaming collection of gold coins, and gold and silver jewellery from a ship salvaged off the Giant's Causeway were on display.

The museum houses an impressive art collection including art from the 17th century to present day with paintings by Gainsborough, Turner, Reynolds and Irish artists Stanley Spencer, John Lavery and a 12ft high canvas of St Christopher by the 17th century Flemish master Jacob Jordaens and a 12ft wide ‘veil painting’ by the post-war American artist Morris Louis. There are also displays of sculpture, furniture, fashion, textiles, silver and metalwork, jewellery, pottery and porcelain, glass, dolls and toys.

The museum also offers some great historical exhibits. The most notable being the exhibition Conflict: The Irish at War, which examines the history of warfare in Ireland from the arrival of the first settlers 10,000 years ago to the present day. This story is presented through a series of ‘snapshots’ focusing on periods and events, and illustrated using objects from the collections in the museum, with a few borrowed from other institutions and private individuals. This exhibit gives a good overview of the recent 'troubles' in Northern Ireland.

On the ground floor there was a jungle exhibition with a real python, a real tarantula, some slimy frogs and stick insects for you to pet.

The museum contains a little bit of everything, and loads for children to see, including a deep sea show, and loads of life-size stuffed snakes, birds and animals, the most impressive being a couple of roebucks, a polar bear and a vulture.

A well-stocked gift shop and a café serving some of the city's best apple cake and fresh cream completes the picture. Admission is free!

Ulster’s Folk Museum, a 15-minute drives from Belfast, presents a bye gone simpler world where villages are self-contained and have close social cohesion. Reassembled and preserved in its open-plan village are historic churches, bakeries, a bank, a printing shop, a sheriff's office, a basket maker’s shop, a tobacconist, and a general store. To complete the picture they contain furniture and decorations for their time period and are populated by people in period costumes who demonstrate and answer questions. We wandered in and out of the buildings, picked up and touched items and got a feel for the past - an ideal educational experience for the young as well as oldies like us.

The village includes a traditional weaver's house, terraces of Victorian town houses, two 18th-century country churches one with the original tombstones - though not the bodies! Also the village contains a flax mill, a farmhouse, and a rural school and a print shop. Some cottages evoke nostalgia, especially when we saw the delicately carved cribs and beautiful quilts - others are bare and cramped. The labourers cottages, have only two bedrooms, and we wondered how they managed to fit the 10 to 14 people into them. The houses of more skilled workers are bigger and have more expensive items. In a 17th-century row of thatched cottages live coal fires and life-sized human figures, skilful works of art with a haunting presence, heighten the atmosphere.

Members of staff using the tools of yesteryear proved interesting to watch as they practicing woodworking and basket weaving. A printing office had copies of the newspapers covering the Titanic sinking. The printer produced a handbill using individual letters of type, an ink roller and a hand-operated printing press. In a cottage a young woman was busy at the spinning wheel and elsewhere another was making soda bread and allowing visitors to sample it.

The village also includes a courthouse, an old Northern Bank with an exhibition of all the money and ledgers used by the banking staff. Schools with textbooks and real graffiti were also present - my wife, a former teacher, sat at the teacher’s desk for a photo. There is also a police station with Spartan cells and an exhibition of the police force in its various names and guises up to present-day.

A rural area, spread over 60 acres contains farms and mills. As it would take a day to see everything we only had time to visit a hill farm but it was clear that for children the farm animals in the rural area are a popular attraction.

The teashop, converted from an old temperance hall, serves pastries and hot drinks but, unsurprisingly, no alcohol. They've also got a small visitor centre store and traditional indoor photo display.

A combined ticket for both parts of the Folk and Transport museums (across the road from each other) costs £6.50 for adults and £3.50 for children, while a family ticket is £18. Allow a day to see everything.

Ulster Transport Museum covers everything from carriages to cars to fighter planes, as well as the definitive exhibition on the Titanic. The multitude transport items on display actually made in Belfast itself is astonishing.

The story of transport in Ireland on a country-wide scale began in 1710 with the Post Office running mail coaches along the routes linking towns. Private operators adding to the routes led to a permanent road network. Some canal building also occurred and in 1779 to the first 12-mile section of the Grand Canal opening. By 1815 passenger-carrying horse-car services set up regular services in the south of Ireland, the first of many to follow.

Nothing, however, beats the snorting, puffing glamour of a steam train breathing and exhaling steam. The museum’s Irish Railway Collection tells the story of over 150 years of railway development. Rail transport in Ireland began a decade later than that of Great Britain. By its peak it extended to 3,400 miles of track with about half remaining.

Steam locomotives, passenger carriages and goods wagons combine in the museum with extensive railway memorabilia and interactive displays. These include an award-winning computer game. One of the collection's main attractions is Maedb, the largest and most powerful steam locomotive built and run in Ireland. Clambering up on its footplate, the simple controls and the meagre view down each side of the engine surprised me.

Alongside the Irish Railway Collection are the Road Transport Galleries, which contains a large collection of transport ranging from cycles and motorcycles, to trams, buses, and cars. One of its most famous attractions is a De Lorean DMC-12 car made by the De Lorean Motor Company in Belfast - made famous by the Back to the Future trilogy.

The museum boasts a moving section on the luxury liner the Titanic, designed and built in the Harland and Wolff shipyards, just a few miles from the museum. The exhibition documents the construction, voyage, and sinking of the ill-fated vessel on her first voyage, in 1912, killing 1,500 of the passengers and crew.

A modern exhibition is the X2: Flight Experience. It enables young visitors to discover for themselves the principles of flight, explore the history of aviation, and understand the science of making a successful aircraft. Also on display at the museum is the Short's of Belfast produced SC1, a prototype vertical take-off aeroplane. Principles learned from it led to the building of the Harrier jump jet one of the most successful planes in aviation history.

Attractions in the grounds themselves include a model railway run by the Model Engineers Society of Northern Ireland, and the 120 ton steel schooner Result.

The Ulster Transport Museum in its beautifully designed building is across the road from the Ulster Folk Museum. A combined ticket for both parts of the museum (Folk and transport) costs £6.50 for adults and £3.50 for children. The transport museum has full disabled access.

On a basalt dyke protruding into Belfast Lough, the Normans erecting Carrickfergus Castle to guard the approach to Belfast Lough. This the earliest castle in Ireland has survived through 750 years of continuous military occupation. Almost surrounded by sea and with strong landward defences the castle must have seemed impregnable. Under its protective shadow a walled town developed.

John de Courcy, on conquered the area in 1177, built the inner ward and keep. It is 90-feet high and contains four floors. The external entrance leads into a public room on the second floor. The third floor contains another poorly lit room, with a fireplace and a single latrine. The fourth storey, in contrast, consists of a high, brightly lit room with windows in all four walls, a fireplace and single latrine. It was the main chamber and served as de Courcy's private quarters. A well shaft provided water and a vaulted cellar, storage.

In 1204, Hugh de Lacy seized control of the castle, followed in turn in 1210 by King John and then once again de Lacy returned, this time as Earl of Ulster. Each occupant further expanded the castle until a curtain wall, following the line of the rock below, enclosed the entire promontory. A twin-towered gatehouse and two lengths of thick walls, a drawbridge, portcullis and murder holes barred unwanted visitors.

In 1264, William de Burgh became the Earl of Ulster and the castle’s occupant. After a year’s siege Edward Bruce, brother of the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, forced him to surrender. The English retook the castle in two years time and held it for nearly four centuries until the Scots again seized it. Cromwell's parliamentary army in seven years time then won control.

During the 16th century Sir Francis Drake used the castle for his headquarters. He demolished the upper levels of the gate-towers to house artillery. Despite improvements continuing, in 1760 French invaders captured it. They looted the castle and town and left, however the British Navy caught them.

In 1778 one of the first battles of the American War of Independence took place on Belfast Lough by the castle. John Paul Jones attacked a British navy ship and forced her to strike her colours.

During the Napoleonic Wars Carrickfergus had its armaments increased - six guns on the east battery remain of the 22 used in 1811. During the First World War the castle served as a garrison and ordnance store and during the Second World War as an air raid shelter. In 1928 its ownership transferred to the government for preservation as an ancient monument and it is open to the public.

Displays tell the castle’s story and show what life was like in medieval times. Some of the exhibits are disconcerting - life like mannequins dressed in soldiers uniform preparing to fire a cannon down on you. Some like King John on the throne (latrine) are cheeky. The castle’s story is long and the displays tell it with clarity.