Belfast, Northern Ireland – Part One

Munich airport beergarden - Europa train station Belfast

I left gorgeous, sunny Munich at 10.45 am after having sat in an airport beergarden catching the sun at 9am. It was a far cry from the rain that poured on my arrival at Belfast airport and didn’t stop until my last day. However, this didn’t deter my fellow breakfasters in the B&B I stayed in on the first night from deciding to go for a walk along the beach.



My brother and his family live north east of Belfast, hence my long weekend getaway. As both my brother and his wife were working on the Friday I decided to do the tourist thing in Belfast. As I’ve previously worked on open top bus tours, I know if time is short then a bus tour is a good way to find out about a place. As it was raining I checked what time the half covered bus was leaving so I could get views from the top but stay dry. Buses were going every half an hour so in the time I had to wait I went on the Belfast wheel.


The Belfast Wheel lasts about 12-13 minutes, where it stops for a few minutes at the top on the first go around and then there are 2-3 more circles of the Wheel. There is a commentary pointing out what there is to see. There is a flaw with the commentary as it’s not much help if you don’t know where north is (they refer to landmarks by compass points). So if you can’t orientate by north or by a landmark (some visitors don’t know anything about the city) then it’s difficult to work out where they are talking about. But it was good to go on and see a city from such a height (200ft/61m) without having to climb up lots of stairs!