My 6 Day adventure in Dorset and Belfast - Day 3 (morning) - Belfast - The Botanic Gardens; the City Hall - The 13th of June 2017

We set off fairly early in the morning heading towards the Botanic Gardens. The weather wasn't as good as in Dorset and at times I felt it might eventually rain, although I didn't intend to let this minor incident affect our trip. 

 

 

 

The Botanic Gardens are said to have opened in 1828 as a private park, which only allowed members of the public visits on Sundays till 1895, when it finally became public. The Palm House Conservatory which immediately caught our attention is believed to be one of the earliest examples of curvilinear cast iron glasshouses in the world.

We strolled around for quite a while and did enjoy the peacefulness, the morning freshness and above all the green, which is getting scarce in our motherland, as stretches of terrain are occupied by houses rather than gardens and open air spaces.

We headed towards the Lyric Theatre to collect some Theatre tickets for the evening and in doing so, walked around a part of the city along the river Lagan we wouldn't have seen had we gone straight to the city centre.

 

 

 

We came across some rather interesting graffitis as we got closer to the heart of the city, where we intended to visit the City Hall.

St. Bartholomew's Church

In Portland stone, the Belfast City Hall is in Baroque revival style and does stand out no matter where you look at it from.

 

 

 

The interior's dome was eye catching and so were the great hall and the various reception rooms. We didn't wait for the public guided tour and ventured onto  the visitor's exhibition ground floor  instead. It covers the diversity of Belfast across a variety of themes stretching over 16 rooms, which we found to be very well organised, providing the visitors with fairly detailed information.

 

 

 

The stained glass windows marking historic events, which were spread along the building and which we admired for quite a while, are said to be all original to the building since 1906.

The famine window (right) commemorating the plight of all those citizens of Belfast who died as a result of typhus and cholera in the years 1846, 1847 and 1848 and who were laid to rest in mass common graves.

 

As we walked out I looked back and didn't resist taking a couple more photos.

(To be continued)

 

My 6 day adventure in Dorset and Belfast - Day 2 - Wareham outskirts; on the way to Belfast; Belfast bed accommodation - The 12th of June 2017

Mia and I spent part of the morning going into second hand shops till we joined Liam in taking around two dogs he looks after on a regular basis. The place he took them out to was just in the outskirts of Wareham and quite a nice area.  

We later caught a train to Southampton, so as to fly to Belfast, as part of a three day sojourn Mia had decided to surprise me with. Fearing we wouldn't find too many places open once we reached Belfast we had a succulent, greesy and yet tasty hamburger at the airport.

The bed and breakfast place Mia had rented was in the Queen University's area, so we took a taxi, once we reached Belfast airport later than we had initially expected. The room was equipped with a kitchenet though we had no intention of making our own meals. We were feeling tired so soon after having arrived we decided not even to exlore the neighbourhood, as far as restaurants and cafés were concerned and went to bed instead. We'd be doing it the following day.