Schmap Belfast Official Tours of Belfast

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Belfast - Official Tours of Belfast
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One of the best ways for the visitor to catch all that the city has to offer is to try a tour. Here are some of the tours currently on offer that aim to capture those aspects of the city worth taking home with you. Politics, of course, is with us still, and if you're interested in seeing the trouble spots of both Protestant and Catholic West Belfast, try a Black Taxi Tour. The murals you'll see painstakingly painted on gable ends are a unique expression of communities in crisis, and it's fascinating to compare the Loyalist Shankhill Road murals with the Republican Falls Road ones - same medium, but very different messages. The Black Taxi Tour will also show you the Peace Line, designed to keep two communities apart, as well as taking you round some of the most famous building in the city centre. Intimate and informative, it's a great way to see for yourself the issues and the energies that have shaped the conflict in Belfast since 1969.

If you want to see the city from the vantage point of a luxury bus, the Belfast City Tour run by Citybus will bring you to every major attraction in the greater Belfast area in the space of an afternoon. The tour has been thoroughly thought out, with stops for refreshments included in the price. You'll see the shipyard Harland & Wolff, where you can stand in the shadow of the two largest cranes in the world, Samson and Goliath. (Belfast, we say, builds Big, take for example The Titanic...) The elegant Parliament buildings at Stormont are on the agenda, and you also get taken up to the quiet, wooded slopes of the Cave Hill to Belfast Castle, stately home of the Chichester family who owned practically all of North Belfast. This is the tour of Belfast as the regional capital of Northern Ireland, and you'll see all the state institutions you would expect of a capital in all their pomp and architectural splendour.

Belfast developed as a city around its waterway, the Lagan, and there's a great Lagan Cruise running from the re-vamped, swish Waterfront docklands area up to Stranmillis Weir by Queen's University. There's something very calming about boats and water, and this tour is a great way to learn and relax at the same time. You'll see very different faces of Belfast again, from the yuppified, expensive new business developments to the old cottages of Ulster on the banks higher up the river. Your tour guide is friendly and infectiously enthusiastic, and you'll be guided slowly up river in a ship called The James Joyce. What more could you want?

And of course no trip to Belfast would be complete without visiting that worldwide famous institution, the Irish Pub, the very place to dive straight into the proverbial heart of the Irish Welcome. There's a Historical Pub Tour of the city that has already done all the hard work for you - picked out the brightest, best and liveliest of Belfast's bars and strung them together into the most enjoyable tour around. Everything you could want is here, Irish music, endless craic, a chance to get off your feet at regular intervals and of course the inviting prospect of imbibing the local poison. If this tour drags on for longer than it's supposed too, don't blame the organizers.

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Belfast Castle

19th-century Castle

Bellevue
Antrim Road
Belfast BT15 5GR
United Kingdom
+44 28 9077 6925
http://www.belfastcastle.co.uk

Set on the wooded slopes of the dramatic Cave Hill is the 19th-century edifice of Belfast Castle. The castle was built in 1870 and was previously home to the Earl of Shaftesbury. Within the castle are two rather expensive restaurants and also a small heritage centre offering an insight into the area's history. There is a playground for children. The castle and its spectacular grounds afford beautiful views of the whole city and across Belfast Lough to Co. Down. If you feel like venturing beyond the grounds, there are walks which lead you up to the foot of Napoleon's Nose (a cliff face that resembles the profile of a giant on its back) and to the caves that gave the Cave Hill its name.

Review © 2007, Wcities

Photo: Mike McC

Belfast Castle photo by Christopher Tweed

Photo: Christopher Tweed

Belfast Castle photo by Stuart & Rachel Johnston

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Belfast Castle photo by Vanessa Chambers

Photo: Vanessa Chambers

Belfast Castle photo by Sharon Campbell-Shaw

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Belfast City Tour

The Original Belfast Tour Castle Place
Belfast BT1 1GA
United Kingdom
+44 28 9033 7004
http://www.citybus.co.uk/tours... This tour offered by Citybus is the easiest way to see what Belfast has to offer if you've an afternoon to spare, and is the only Belfast tour delivered in four languages - English, French, German and Spanish. You'll stop off at the Harland & Wolff Shipyards - fans of the Titanic will be thrilled, as this is where the fateful ship was built. St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast Castle, Queen's University and Botanic Gardens are also on the agenda, and just in case you're feeling confused, you get a map and illustrated booklet before you set off to help keep you on track. The tour lasts for three hours and spans 40 miles. Tickets are £9 with concessions and family rates available. Tours depart from Castle Place at noon sharp Mondays and Fridays.

Review © 2007, Wcities

Photo: Jay Quiambao

Black Taxi Tour

Authoritative guide encompassing all aspects of the city City-wide
Pick up and drop off at your hotel
Belfast, Antrim BT12 4PE
United Kingdom
+44 28 9064 2264
http://www.belfasttours.com This taxi tour will pick you up at your hotel and take you on a journey around the city's most famous buildings, and around the hot spots that have made Belfast one of Europe's most popular cities. See the murals which reflect Belfast's sectarian divisions, and the peace line - Belfast's own version of the Berlin Wall. These images don't normally feature in the tourist brochures but still hold a macabre fascination for visitors. The tour also visits chapels, the courts, Crumlin Road Jail and the shipyard where the Titanic was built. Prices for the 90-minute tour are GBP25 for one or two people and GBP8 for each additional person, up to six passengers per tour.

Review © 2007, Wcities

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Historical Pub Tours of Belfast

The Finish This Tour And Stay Standing Challenge Crown Bar
46 Great Victoria St
Belfast BT2 7BA
United Kingdom
+44 28 9268 3665
http://www.belfastpubtours.com/ If you've come to Ireland for the wit, warmth and music of its people, step inside the Irish Pub, and all will be revealed. Belfast has its fair share of historic bars, and this is the best way to see the best of them. Each tour begins at the Crown and, if you can stay the pace, lasts for six pubs and two hours. Travel back in time to the gaslight and Victoriana, or into the heart of Belfast's best-kept 17th-century institution, White's Tavern. Wherever you go, you'll experience good craic and endless opportunities to sample that fair trinity of Irish blessings, Baileys, Bushmills and Guinness. The tour costs £6 a head, excluding drinks.

Review © 2007, Wcities

Lagan Cruise

A great trip upriver with some surprises 48 St. John's Close
2 Laganbank Rd
Belfast BT1 3LX
United Kingdom
+44 28 9033 0844
http://www.laganboatcompany.com To find out more about Belfast's main waterway, the Lagan, step aboard the James Joyce for a guided tour that will take you from the Lagan Lookout to Stranmillis Weir, in the heart of the city's university quarter. You'll pass the hottest property on the Belfast market - the Laganside Apartment Buildings, as well as the recently built Hilton Hotel, both part of the up-market development that has given the docklands of Belfast a stunning face lift. From this futuristic glimpse of the city you'll glide gracefully into the past: both the Ormeau and Annadale embankments offer views of some of the oldest cottages in Northern Ireland.

Review © 2007, Wcities

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Murals of West Belfast

The signifiers of a divided community Various venues
Belfast BT11 8BB
United Kingdom
Ever since the explosion of the "Troubles" in 1968, popular art has played a major role in proclaiming the loyalties of Belfast's two antagonistic communities. Vivid murals expressing political and paramilitary affiliations adorn the gable ends of houses on both sides of the divide. Kerbstones are also decorated with the colours of respective flags of allegiance. Many tourists to Belfast make the journey specifically to view these murals, which have become (in)famous around the world. One of the best ways to do so is by taking a Black Taxi Tour, which will take you to all the trouble spots of the city while your tour guide explains the distinctive iconography of the murals of both sides.

Review © 2007, Wcities

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Queen's University

Prestigious University University Road
Belfast BT7 1LN
United Kingdom
+44 28 9024 5133
http://www.qub.ac.uk/ No trip to Belfast would be complete without a visit to Queen's. The building was designed by Charles Lanyon and completed in 1849, about the same time as University College Cork and University College Galway. All three buildings share architectural similarities. The front wing of Queen's was based on the late medieval design of Magdalen College, Oxford, and is a fine example of Victorian Gothic revivalism. Call the Queen's Visitor Centre (just through the main archway to your left) to learn more about the institution and its history. You can buy an assortment of Queen's memorabilia here. As with many universities, the surrounding area is vibrant, with an emphasis as much on having a good time as serious, diligent, rigorous academic study.

Review © 2007, Wcities

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Stormont Castle

Symbolic Landmark Upper Newtownards Road
Belfast BT4 3SD
United Kingdom
+44 28 9052 0100 This neo-classical palatial structure built between 1928 and 1932 was designed to house the Parliament for Northern Ireland after the partition of Ireland into North and South in 1922. Set in its own extensive grounds, the main building stands at the end of a majestic avenue, one mile long. This is a building weighted with the full gravitas of government, and with the heavy history of the region and peoples to whom it is responsible. Dissolution of Stormont as the seat of Northern Ireland's Parliament has always marked periods of political unrest. The Northern Ireland Assembly is currently up and running, however, and people here and all over the world are anxious that it continues to be so.

Review © 2007, Wcities

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