The luck of the (northern) Irish

I have lucky girl syndrome. I've been treated like a princess my entire life by my parents and my family, and they really went full princess treatment for my 30th birthday celebrations with the most incredible sunset themed party and lots of lovely presents. Fortunately for me, I now not only have parents who treat me like a princess, but I also have a man who treats me like a queen. And along with some gorgeous presents, his treat for my 30th was a weekend in Belfast! A lucky girl, heading for a touch of the luck of the Irish.

One of my favourite parts of the weekend was seeing Ash being the travel captain for the first time. Even though he's been a very willing travel partner for the last 18 months, he's never been the one to actually find, book, and sort everything. But this time, he was the Luke to my Obi-Wan. Obviously he did a perfect job with everything - but with a teacher like me, how could he not? He picked perfect flights because we flew late morning on the Friday so we didn't have to get up crazy early but still arrived to enjoy the main part of the day. 

The main part of the rainy day, that is. If there's one thing you can rely on Belfast for, it's rain. Or maybe not? We stepped off the plane to torrential rain, but by the time we'd caught the bus into the city, it had slowed to a drizzle, and it stopped completely while we were at our first stop. It wasn't time to check into our apartment yet so we decided to sample a couple of the many cool pubs in Belfast. We tried Kelly's Cellar and Maddens, and naturally I had to get a Guinness. Which obviously everyone does in Ireland so when the middle-aged couple next to us started chatting and the guy dared me to try and split the G, I had to establish that it wasn't my first rodeo. Guinness is for life, it's not just for Ireland.

Ash had chosen a really lovely apartment just across the river, and after dropping the bags off, we decided to have a super quick turnaround and head back out since we were already a couple of drinks in. Normally post-9pm dinner people, we actually went straight for an early dinner (pre-7pm!!) because we'd had breakfast at the airport but then skipped lunch. I always like to eat on theme for where I am so we wanted to sample some proper Irish pub food and were not disappointed by the food at Whites. We shared a fish and chips and an Irish stew and both were fabulous. The bread was crazy stodgy though and almost spiced in flavour - more like a dessert!

We'd done some research and read that the Cathedral quarter was where it was at for nightlife in Belfast! Specifically a place called commercial court, which had lots of cute umbrella decorations and the most amazingly decorated pub, The Duke of York. There was even a neon sign all about how much rain they get in Belfast which, ironically, was nowhere to be seen by this point and would remain that way for the rest of our trip. Lucky girl syndrome strikes again.

One of the major reasons for Ash choosing Belfast for my birthday weekend was that we love an Irish pub together. We love live music, we love the atmosphere, and neither of us had ever been to Northern Ireland before. If we thought Irish pubs at home were good, Belfast just blew them all out the water. We went for live music at The Harp, which was amazing, and then live music in the outdoor sheltered beer garden portion of The Thirsty Goat. We had a nosey in The Spaniard but it looked cramped so we skipped it and rounded off our night with more live music, switching the genre from folk to jazz. Bert's Jazz Bar offered a slightly swankier vibe but it was a perfect note to end the night on, with some gorgeous cocktails. Having been to Dublin a couple of times now, I think I have to say that Belfast edges it for me. The pubs were cooler, less expensive, and had less of a tourist-trap feel. It just felt more Irish somehow (ironic considering it's politically less Irish). I guess it just felt more authentic and local; less of a cultural melting pot. If Dublin is London, then Belfast is more of a Manchester or Liverpool. It has the feel of a very arty, lively, friendly city.

The next morning, we woke up to beautiful blue skies and sunshine! We hadn't done much exploring the day before, beyond the inside of the pubs, so we set out to get some steps in and see some sights. After a quick coffee stop at Native which was cool and shaped like a ship, we saw the Beacon of Hope statue, the Albert Memorial Clock, and the Salmon of Knowledge (opted not to kiss it for hygiene reasons!).

Once we had crossed the river into the main city centre, Ash was on a mission to walk us to a place he'd found online; Joy's Entry. It may sound like something of the adult entertainment variety, but it's actually a cute little nook that the city decorate differently every couple of months. It was very girly and disco while we were there which I loved! Giant iridescent bubbles, sequin walls, and pink everything. The best part was that it popped out at this really cool pub courtyard (the Jailhouse), and obviously it would've been rude not to stop for a drink and celebrate the discovery.

The next thing on the list was the viewing platform at the top of the Victoria square shopping centre. So we had a wander through and as shopping centres go, it was pretty cool. But when we got to the lift, it had a sign taped up saying 'viewing platform closed' so we were destined to admire the view from the bottom rather than the top. Don't worry, we had rooftop views in our future!

Until then, we had a walk over to the city hall, which was a really impressive domed building surrounded by lovely green public space. It's always nice to see people making the most of the outdoors and lots of people were out sunbathing or having picnics. We simply got a few pictures and then made the most of the tourist hotspot as an opportunity to find someone offering the tour we wanted to do that afternoon. 

We had an hour or so until our tour so we had a walk through town to the Common market for some lunch. I'm generally not a big street food person just because it sounds cooler and more fun on paper than it does in reality. In reality, it's always better (and not much more expensive) to have a meal sat at an actual table. However, I knew that I fancied trying Ireland's iconic takeaway (the spice bag) and there was a stall at the market supposedly selling some amazing ones. This was actually a cool market as well as it had big long tables in the middle with 8 or so vendors round the outside, so it was more of a food court than it was street food. We opted to sit outside in the sun and shared one of the famous spice bags and it was delicious. Although I don't think I've ever had more salt in a single sitting before!

Then we returned to city hall because it was time for our black taxi tour. It's hard to describe this tour in one line; some of the online tours are named 'murals tour', some are named 'political tour', and some have gone with creative names like the 'say nothing tour'. In short, black cabs driven by locals will drive you around both the Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods of Belfast, teaching you about the history of the troubles of 1968-1998, and showing you iconic places like the peace walls, and the murals on the way. I wasn't overly educated on The Troubles before going to Belfast, being that it was mostly before I was born. But it was really fascinating to learn more about it, especially from a local who literally lived through it. He was super deliberate about giving an unbiased tour too and didn't reveal which side he was from until the very end of the tour. It was quite expensive at about £70 for the 2 of us, but if you want to learn more about Belfast and the general history and politics of Northern Ireland then it's well worth doing, plus you can see and learn a lot more on a black taxi tour than you can on an alternative like a coach tour or a hop-on-hop-off bus.

Even though the tour was super interesting, it left us a bit subdued. Obviously it's a really sad piece of history! So needing to lift our spirits, we thought we'd go for a literal lift, and some literal spirits. Cocktails on a rooftop bar? Sounds about right to me. This bar was on top of the Bullitt hotel and had such cute Miami-esque/Wes Anderson decor.

Having had a casual pub dinner the previous day, me and Ash thought more of a proper date night was on the cards. There were quite a lot of nice restaurants on offer in Belfast but we chose Millar's because it offered mine and Ash's favourites; steak and seafood. We had the most gorgeous meal! Thai green curry mussels and goats cheese crostini to start, and then Ash got a steak for main and I got hake with clams and nduja. It was all incredible. I'd packed a lot of a green outfits for the weekend because when in Ireland, why not? This night, I managed to have coordinated my outfit so well with the local scenery that I literally blended into the wall! 

We were straight back into the thick of it after dinner. Obviously we'd sampled a decent number of pubs by this point in the trip but we still had a few more we wanted to try out. We started with drinks (and people watching) at McHughs where me and Ash got gender profiled for our drinks choices. Can't a tall bearded bald guy get a rosé wine and lemonade once in a while? And who's to say a girly girl can't order a double whiskey neat? I wonder why the bartender would've guessed it the other way around.

It may have been home day on the Sunday but the fun was far from over. I would say that Belfast is a fairly compact city that you can easily explore in a couple of days. So we'd toyed with different activity options for our final day, such as the titanic museum, or a few rounds of a crazy golf. But once we were there and knew the weather forecast was set to be clear, it made more sense to do something more outdoorsy. My mum and dad had been to Northern Ireland a few years earlier and they'd been really impressed by Giants Causeway. So it was a destination on my mind but I figured we probably wouldn't have time for it in just the weekend. We were in luck though because we managed to find a half day tour on GetYourGuide, setting off from the city at 1pm and arriving back around half 5. Which worked perfectly with our flights! So after booking that and figuring we wouldn't be doing the titanic museum after all, we realised we still wanted to see the titanic quarter, so we started the day with a walk from there to the city centre. It was really cool and made for a pretty walk along the water!

Since breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we started with a fab one. I'd originally picked out a place called the pocket but when we rounded the corner, we discovered a massive queue along the street. One thing about me is, I'm not queuing for a restaurant. I wouldn't even really queue for a totally unique concept of a restaurant, never mind for brunch when there are loads of other places a stones throw away. We literally walked about 10 paces before we spotted the very flowery, Dilly & Dolly's. They had a table outside in the sun, they had great iced coffee, and tasty breakfast options. Right then and there.

After boarding the coach, we began the hourish drive up to the very northern point on the island. Even though Giants Causeway was the main attraction, we were actually heading towards the Portaneevy viewpoint first. It's one of the closest points to Scotland and is only around 12 miles away, so we could wave to Ash's best mate who was on the Isle of Arran at the time (he messaged to say he'd waved back so I'm going to assume he could definitely see us from there). The whole spot was really beautiful and once again I felt so lucky that we'd been so jammy with the weather. It already felt like we'd got so much more from our trip by seeing a bit more of the rural area rather than staying in the city. You could really tell why Ireland is nicknamed the Emerald Isle from here - look how lush and green it was! The viewpoint had an ice cream van and a cute little coffee truck too so we got some refreshments before getting back on the coach to head to Giants Causeway.

My only overall criticism of the day is that we could've done with a bit longer at Giants Causeway. There was a whole spiel on the excursion booking page about how you'd have 90 minutes which they know is the perfect amount of time from YEARS of tour doing. In actuality, we got off the bus at 3pm and were told we needed to be back at the meet point at 4:05pm, with the bus leaving at 4:15pm. That included joining a long queue for the toilets before being able to actually walk down! Luckily me and Ash love a walk and go at a good pace so we hiked down, admired the incredible hexagonal rock formations, got some lovely pictures and then left at 15:45, and we had a half pint in hand at the pub at the top by 16:01. We just needed proper motivation! The coach driver told us all about how there's a shuttle bus up and down from the main entrance area, to the rocks. But unless you've got serious mobility issues I wouldn't recommend it - it was absolutely packed each time we saw it drive up and down and apparently it was a right raucous to get on it. It was literally a 15-20 minute walk each way with a steady incline - plus the views were amazing so it was a nice walk. We did have to pay the toll for being the last back on the bus (even though we were on time I might add). The driver had warned us that the last on would have to sing to the bus. Luckily my boyfriend is a gentleman and has a classic chivalrous 'ladies first' mentality. So he drew the short straw and had to do the singing hehe!

We couldn't have written how well the day worked out. Not only did booking an excursion mean we didn't have to find luggage storage for our bags for the day (because they were safely stowed in the coach all day), but the coach driver (knowing about our return flight) also offered to drop us off at the main bus station rather than the meet point where he dropped everyone else. It meant we made the earlier bus to the airport by about 2 minutes, and saved us waiting 30 minutes for the next one! For Ash's first rodeo in charge, everything went so perfectly and I couldn't have wished for a better birthday weekend. If this is 30, then I think I'm going to like it.