Traveling with the Jones

Last week when we were discussing her upcoming trip to Ireland this summer, a woman named Donna asked me what I knew about Belfast, Ireland.  I had to answer, “Not much, except that I know there is a Titanic Museum there where the Titanic was built.” Our discussion made me curious, so I researched Belfast.

Here are 34 fun facts I learned about Belfast, the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland.

1. Belfast is second largest city on the island of Ireland.

2. Northern Ireland, along with England, Scotland and Wales make up the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

3. The land that makes up Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age.

4. The 5,000-year-old henge, known as Giant’s Ring, is located near Belfast, and Iron Age hill fort remains still are present in the surrounding hills.

5. While Belfast stayed a small settlement during the Middle Ages, the city played a leading role in the Industrial Revolution and was Ireland’s largest city around the early part of the 20th century.

6. When the U.S. Civil War disrupted Europe’s cotton supply, Irish linen experienced a revival. Linen companies flourished, and Belfast became the world’s largest linen-producing area, hence its nickname, Linenopolis.

7. Its location at the mouth of the River Lagan made Belfast an ideal location for the shipbuilding industry. Harland and Wolff had the largest shipyard in the world when it built the RMS Titanic during 1911-1912.

8. During the last part of the 19th century, large numbers of Catholics began to migrate in to the prosperous Protestant city of Belfast in search of work. This migration brought tensions as Catholics and Protestants competed for jobs. As the minority, Catholics felt discrimination.

9. With a majority of the residents in the northern part of Ireland being Protestant descendants of colonists from Great Britain, the British parliament partitioned Northern and Southern Ireland in 1921, creating Northern Ireland.

10. The constitutional status of Northern Ireland was the key issue during The Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland that began in the late 1960s. Unionists/loyalists (primarily Protestants) wanted Northern Ireland to stay in the United Kingdom, while Irish nationalists/republicans (mostly Catholics) want to leave the UK and join a united Ireland. The conflict began amidst a campaign to end discrimination against the Catholic/nationalist minority by the Protestant/unionist-dominated government and police force.

11. The Belfast “Good Friday” Agreement of 1998 was seen as the end of The Troubles.

12. By 2014, the Catholic population in Belfast has risen to 49 percent, while the Protestant population has dropped to 42 percent, according to BBC News.

13. Readily viewed from any area of the city, Belfast’s famous cranes are called Samson and Goliath, still the biggest free-standing cranes anywhere in the world. They have been classified as official historical monuments.

14. A series of hills flank the northwestern side of Belfast, including Divis Mountain, Black Mountain and Cavehill.

15. Cavehill is believed to have inspired author Jonathan Swift’s sleeping giant in his Gulliver’s Travels novel. When Swift resided at Lilliput Cottage near the bottom of Belfast’s Limestone Road, he imagined that the Cavehill resembled the shape of a sleeping giant safeguarding the city.

16. The shape of the giant’s nose, known as Napoleon’s Nose, is officially named McArt’s Fort after Art O’Neill, a 17th-century chieftain who controlled the area.

17. On average, it rains 157 days a year in Belfast, less than Scotland, but more than Dublin.

18. Snow typically falls in Belfast less than 10 days a year.

19. Since 2001, the Belfast city council has developed a number of cultural quarters:

• The Cathedral Quarter takes its name from St Anne’s Cathedral (Church of Ireland).
• The Gaeltacht Quarter around the Falls Road in west Belfast promotes and encourages the use of the Irish language.
• The Queen’s Quarter in south Belfast, named after Queen’s University, is home to Botanic Gardens and the Ulster Museum.
• The Golden Mile describes the area between Belfast City Hall and Queen’s University, with some of the best bars and restaurants in the city.
• The Titanic Quarter is named after the RMS Titanic, built here in 1912. This quarter includes reclaimed land adjacent to Belfast Harbor, formerly known as Queen’s Island, and today is home to the Titanic Museum.

20. Opened in March, 2012 on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard, the Titanic Belfast is a monument to Belfast’s maritime heritage, featuring nine high-tech galleries amidst a crisscross of escalators and suspended walkways.

21. Actor Liam Neeson had his stage premier at Belfast’s Lyric Theater. Neeson was born in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, located 28 miles northwest of Belfast.

22. Women could hold any office at Queen’s University in Belfast, twelve years before they could study at Oxford.

23. Surrounded by mountains that create a micro-climate conducive to horticulture, Belfast contains 3,000 acres of parks, many of them forested.

24. The Botanic Gardens Palm House — designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and built in the 1830s –is one of the earliest examples of a curvilinear and cast iron glass-enclosed greenhouse. The Botanic Gardens Park also hosted a U2 concert in 1997.

25. South of the Belfast city center, the Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park attracts thousands of visitors each year to its International Rose Garden. Every July Rose Week features more than 20,000 blooms.

26. John Wood Dunlop invented the pneumatic tire in Belfast.

27. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven was first played live in the Ulster Hall.

28. The Obel Tower is the tallest building in Belfast, and in Northern Ireland.

29. Opened in 1788, the Linenhall Library is Belfast’s oldest. It houses a large collection of work by writer Robert Burns, as well as more than 20,000 archive items relating to Irish politics and culture. Guided tours of the library are offered in the summer months.

30. James Murray invented Milk of Magnesia in Belfast.

31. Oscar Wilde thought that there was only one beautiful building in Belfast. It is now home to a Marks and Spencer department store.

32. The Glass Jar is the narrowest bar in Belfast.

33. There have been three different “Belfast Castles.” The current building at the Cave Hill site was finished in 1870. It was designed by Charles Lanyon in a deer reserve, and was the residence of the 3rd Marquis of Donegall. The first “Belfast Castle” was built by the Normans in the late 12th Century. The second was the home of Sir Arthur Chichester and was built in 1611, only to burn down in 1708.

34. The Crown Bar, one of the most famous pubs in Belfast, was originally a Railway Hotel dating to 1826 when the first train ran from Belfast to Lisburn.

CORRECTIONS: Fun Fact number 21 was updated on April 6, 2017. The prior version stated that Actor Liam Neeson was born in Belfast. Neeson was born in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, located 28 miles northwest of Belfast.

Fun Fact number 2 was update on May 24, 2017. The prior version stated that Northern Ireland, along with England, Scotland and Wales make up the “United Kingdom of Great Britain.” The correct fact is that since 1922, Northern Ireland, along with England, Scotland and Wales make up the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

Do you have a “fun fact” about Belfast, Northern Ireland that you can add to this list? 

Learn more about Belfast from these sources:
Belfast: A History
Titanic: Belfast’s Own
Collins Belfast Street Finder Atlas (Collins Travel Guides)

Check out these other Fun Facts posts:

• 12 Fun Facts About Dutch Harbor, Alaska
• 15 Fun Facts about Cornwall, England
• Visiting Alaska? 22 Fun Facts You Might Want to Know
• 11 Fun Facts to Know About the Cook Islands
• 20 Fun Facts About Colombo, Sri Lanka

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We have an upcoming Western Caribbean cruise planned that includes a port call in Key West, Florida, so we were really excited to see this article in the New York Times Travel Section: In Key West, A Taste of Cuban Coffee Culture.  Our priority will be visiting Five Brothers for cafe con leches, since the article describes Mr. Paez “brewing several at a time with his tin of Cafe Bustelo in front of him.”  Cafe Bustelo is our current favorite Espresso Style Keurig cup at home, although undoubtedly the real thing could perhaps dampen our enthusiasm.

Speaking of food and drinks and travel, visiting the right spots and registering your mileage credit card can pay frequent flier mileage dividends. Chris Guillebeau on the Art of Non-Conformity blog shares how he and two friends tried out 12 Portland eating and drinking establishments in one day, and earned VIP status with Rewards Network in a single day. Check out how you could be earning miles and points, and get some good dining and drinking ideas for your next trip to Portland, Oregon.

If a visit to San Diego is on your horizon, local blogger Elise Blaha Cripe has just published her recommendations on her family’s Favorite San Diego Spots.  She mentions a couple of places in Little Italy, one our our favorite areas to visit in San Diego, just about four blocks up from the Cruise Terminal.

Do you feel like you usually get a good hotel room at check-in, or a less-than-desirable one? Chris McGinnis writes about the 5 key questions to ask at hotel check-in on his Travel Skills blog. Our hotel tips: stay loyal to one or two brands, and be sure to add your room preferences to your profile, such as “room away from elevator.” We make this request because we’d gladly walk further in order to score a quieter room for a good night’s sleep

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Last month, we made a long weekend trip to Clearwater Beach, Florida, staying three nights at the Hilton Clearwater Beach hotel.  Here’s a quick photo tour of our oceanview room. Take a quick peek into our assigned room #861, classified as a “Coast View room with a king bed” on the Hilton website.

The Clearwater Beach Hilton is clearly an older property, but the rooms have modern furnishings with a clean, white “beachy” decor. The curtains hide the door to the balcony

The best thing about room 861 is its view of the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. Clearwater Beach offers and miles of white powder sand, and sunsets that USA Today called “˜North America’s “Best Place to Watch a Sunset.”

The private balcony featured two chairs and a small table, perfect for having a glass of wine while taking in the views of Clearwater Beach and the Gulf of Mexico. The mini-refrigerator in the room came in handy for chilling wine and bottles of water.

Here is a look at room 861 from the balcony area. The king bed was very comfortable.

The bathroom was small but had updated faucets and other accessories.

Here is a panoramic view of the bathroom.

Besides the balcony view, the other best thing about this hotel room was its relatively close location to the beach.

Those famous sunsets are not to be missed.

Our bottom line impressions of the Hilton Clearwater Beach Hotel:

• The rooms are well-maintained, despite the hotel being a bit dated.
• We enjoyed breakfast in restaurant, with the continental buffet include for Diamond Hilton Honors members. You could upgrade to the full hot breakfast buffet for a minimal upcharge.
• The hotel’s coast view rooms like 861 are compact but comfortable, with nice beach views from the balcony.
• We probably would not stay again. Why? The ridiculous mandatory resort fee charges for things that we either did not want or use, or that we should automatically get for free as Hilton Honors Diamond-level members (such as wi-fi.) We simply avoid hotels that have them, and this one did nothing to change our minds on this issue.

 What’s your favorite hotel in Clearwater Beach, Florida? Please share in comments below. 

You may also want to take a quick look inside these other hotels”; 

• A Peek Inside the Prague Marriott Hotel
• A Peek Inside the Four Seasons Hotel-Denver
• A Peek inside the Stanford Court Renaissance Hotel – San Francisco
• A Peek Inside the Hilton New York Fashion District Hotel
• Photo Friday: The Infinity Wedding Chapel

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Or, check out our boards on Pinterest and/or our photos on Instagram.