Nuala with the Hula

Yes, we remembered to feed the meter. Today we had a slowish start to the day. We had a Belfast city tour booked for 1030.  We stopped and got some breakfast and coffee on the way.  We met our tour group and started to learn more about the troubles in Northern Ireland.

 Belfasts "Beacon of Hope"

But known to the locals as "Nuala with the Hula"

We learned about some of the IRA attacks within the city and how they lead to the "The Ring of Steel." The ring of steel was a security cordon that surrounded Belfast's city centre from 1972-1995. This included barriers, checkpoints and turnstiles that controlled movement into the city. Even though the cordon has been removed, there are still some buildings that show holes from where the gates were bolted to them.  There is so many vacant buildings with the city of Belfast and the cheapest real estate available is right in the heart of the city.  I suspect it is extremely hard for people to move past some of the history that is deep within Belfast. Our guide walked us around the city and went through some of the stories from the troubles while showing us some of the sites in the city.  One of the other people on our tour grew up in Belfast and was on the tour with his wife who was English.  He also had some really interesting first hand stories of what it was like growing up in Belfast at the time. Throughout our tour, Finn, our tour guide was showing us some of the murals on sides of buildings and explaining the meaning behind them.  Some of the stories are fascinating.  

Belfast Street Art

 Rubber Bullets that were used by military and police during the troubles.

This is the Albert Clock in Belfast. It has a 5 degree lean on due ground underneath it being made up of riverbank sand.

 Belfast City Coat of Arms 

Some wise words

After our tour we did a bit of a walk around through some of the shops and then headed back to the hotel to feed the meter again on the car and dump some stuff. We headed for a late lunch at The Thirsty Goat around the corner from the hotel.  We wanted to make sure that we didn't get caught later with no place serving food again.  As it was nearing 1630 when we ordered food we treated it as Linner (lunch/dinner) and decided an early night was in order.  

We have noticed that there is a massive police presence here in Belfast. We have felt safe (a lot safer than Derry). We were also talking this morning with our guide about the fact that there are no flags on poles anywhere in the city. This is due to the fact that Northern Ireland does not have its own flag, and with all the troubles they have had, nobody wants to fly the wrong flag.  Even though it's been almost 30 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, some wounds are still not healed.