Belfast - 29 July

The Captain advised last night that our arrival into Belfast would be delayed one hour (which eventually became 1.75 hours). The reason being that we needed 1.5m of water under our lowest point, and it simply wasn't there!!!! Amazing that such a huge ship needs just 1.5m below it (in calm conditions of course).

Anyway,  we were off in the first shuttle. Belfast port is particularly industrial, and its major import is coal from Russia, as is one of its major exports. Belfast has been occupied since the Bronze Age and was founded as "Beal Feirste" by James I in 1613, with city status being granted by Queen Victoria in 1888. It is of course most famous for its ship building (think Titanic & Lusitania) and its long standing religious "troubles".

It's a drizzly morning in Belfast and bordering on rain. It's also Sunday morning, so all pretty quiet as we have a coffee and locate our walk start point - City Hall, a most striking building inside and out, with stained glass windows and a big marble staircase. We walk the sites of inner city Belfast with our guide, including, the Grand Opera, the Europa Hotel (the most frequently bombed hotel in the world), the historic Crown Hotel, to the riverfront, historic alleys and bars. Then visited the glass domed shopping centre to its viewpoint.

By now the rain had stopped, the shops were open, the streets busy, and we took the HOHO around wider Belfast to see the Stormont Parliament buildings, the Falls and Shankhill road areas of the "troubles" - still with great evidence of two sides, including separation gates which continue to be closed at certain times, the seperating walls and the respective republican and loyalist wall murals. It has just been the "marching season", so respective flags are still much in evidence.

A quick visit to the Crown for a guinness and then back to the shuttle bus. Once again our table is the last one occupied in our Dining Room (a bit embarrassing when it happens night after night). Very talented and lively Canadian piano player Kory Simon in the Showroom tonight - and then the Mersey Beatles packed out the Piazza.

This cruise is port intensive and we still have another "port" day before a "sea" day.