By Fergus Shiel
Positive spin ...Belfast’s City Hall and big wheel.Credit: AFP
When I first visited Belfast in the early 1980s it was an uninviting destination by day and a ghost town by night. The Provos were blowing up the place and their Loyalist street rivals were retaliating with murderous intent. Dickens once described Belfast as "a fine place with rough people". He was wrong. Belfast people are supremely friendly but the place used to be as dangerous as a tin of Spam left out in the sun.
An old Belfast poem - still to be found on the wall of the Duke of York bar where Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams once pulled pints - reads: "It's to hell with the future.We'll live in the past. May the Lord in His mercy, be kind to Belfast." Fifteen years after peace was agreed, nobody could accuse Belfast - the only UK city in Frommer's top 12 destinations - of living in the past.
Belfast is born again. The City Hall commands views over grand hotels, smart shops, handsome public buildings, an ice hockey arena, waterfront apartments with jetties and scores of hip restaurants. Shoppers are everywhere. Gunmen, police and soldiers are nowhere to be seen. Salmon have returned to the Lagan. The normality is surreal.
My room, one of 23 at Ten Square, is so quiet it's hard to believe this boutique hotel is in the heart of the lively Donegall Square area. I throw open the curtains to a view of the City Hall, framed by the air-conditioned gondolas of Belfast's big wheel. I amble downstairs for scrambled eggs with salmon, a basket of toast, peppermint tea and a copy of The Irish Times fresh off the press. Ten Square, 10 Donegall Square South; bed and breakfast from £85 ($150); see tensquare.co.uk.
My first stop on a tour of the city's political murals is the Republican Falls Road area. Here, the walls celebrate IRA "martyrs" and hunger strikers, the PLO, the dead in Iraq, the Basques and Castro's Cuba. A few of the political murals have been painted over but the remaining 200 are a steady source of income for cab tours. The front of the Rebel's Rest Bar is bullet-pocked.
Next, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I make the short trip to the Shankill to view Loyalist murals. The large one praising the life of the Queen Mother looks like the artist was on the Pimm's. "No Rebel Hate Will Harm The State, The Bible And The Crown", it boldly proclaims. They say Belfast 's flag makers are the busiest in the world. Here, the Union Jack and the Red Hand of Ulster are de rigueur. My favourite Loyalist chip shop? For Cod and Ulster.
The eight-metre-high Peace Line - a name to give George Orwell a wry chuckle - is a series of walls or barriers off Shankill Road that keep Catholics and Protestants from crossing into one another's territory to raise hell. It has been dolled up with "Give Peace A Chance" messages from world leaders and backpackers along one section. One Aussie has scrawled: "Peace Starts with a BBQ."
Unexpectedly awestruck, I'm looking into the massive dock on Queen's Island where the Titanic was built: 39 metres wide, 259 metres long, 13 metres deep. Belfast once led the world in shipbuilding, linen manufacturing and rope making. There were 49,000 ship workers alone. For many decades the Titanic was Belfast's shameful secret, although locals joked that it was built by Ulstermen and sunk by an Englishman. Now, having well and truly shaken off the shame, the city is spending up to £10 billion on a Titanic Quarter that already includes the busiest film studio in the UK and Ireland. A £90 million Titanic museum centre is set to open in 2012.
Belfast Castle sits under the chin of a hill shaped like a giant that inspired Jonathan Swift to write Gulliver's Travels - his Belfast home was called Lilliput. The castle, on the slopes of Cave Hill, commands a great view of the city and the coastline but I spend my time searching for the seven sculpted cats hidden in the gardens.
Hey, where did we go when the rains came? Where else but Hyndford Street, birthplace of the grumpy old man of Ulster music, Van Morrison. The two-up-two-down, brown-brick terraced house at No.125, like the nearby single-storey Bloomfield Community Centre where he first played, is a most unlikely cradle of genius.Walk past for a look but it's a private residence with no admission.
The five-star Merchant Hotel won a competition for the world's best cocktail earlier this year but we've come to enjoy afternoon tea. In the ornate Victorian grandeur of the Great Room, we nosh on finger sandwiches, pastries and freshly baked scones daubed with clotted cream.
Merchant Hotel, 35-39 Waring Street; £19.50 for high tea.
The John Hewitt Bar, an old-school pub named after one of the city's best-loved poets, can be found in the Cathedral Quarter at 51 Donegall Street. Locals refer to the area as "Our Temple Bar", a reference to the quarter in Dublin once earmarked for demolition and now full of bars and restaurants. But I prefer the Belfast quarter because it remains a centre of radical, antisectarian politics.
Founded in 1788 in Donegall Square North, the Linen Hall Library is the oldest library in Belfast.
Here, hidden on the top floor, I find a collection of artefacts from the Troubles that is curious, sinister and hilarious, too. Next to some rubber bullets the size of zucchinis is an IRA children's alphabet learner that begins: "A is for Armalite that sends them all running." Beside it is a "No Surrender" bib, UVF matches, bottles of Bigot beer and Red Hand Commando wine and secret communications on cigarette papers between Republican hunger strikers and the IRA leadership.
Best and most mischievous of all is a small bag of clay marked: "The Border Itself." 6pm Taking the walking tour of the city means I can't avoid the new Victoria Square mall. The prices are so cheap it seems the whole of southern Ireland moves north at weekends to bag the bargains.
I'm told that if the idea of fresh local seafood at an affordable price grabbed me, I'd enjoy the Mourne Seafood Bar. My informant is spot on. Rustic and cosy, the place is packed. My main course, a local fish in cajun spices, costs £10.50. Mourne Seafood Bar, 34-36 Bank Street.
Maddens Bar dates back to 1751 and is renowned for live Irish music. There's a small, friendly crowd here tonight, supping creamy pints of porter, chatting and playing cards. In a room over the bar, men and women are ceilidhing (traditional dancing) like good things. The man running the show invites us to get into step. Two hours and much whirling and jigging later, a dance called "Shoe The Donkey" sends us on our way. Maddens Bar, 74 Smithfield.
The Crown Liquor Saloon in Great Victoria Street is one of the most beautiful pubs in Ireland. Tiled like a mosque but with the burnished primrose ceiling and gas lamps of a Western saloon, the Crown is something else. Whether in one of the snugs reminiscent of the Orient Express, or on a high stool at the red granite-topped bar, this is the perfect spot for a snifter before bed. On a good night, you'll find more tourists at the Crown than there were in the entire city a decade ago.
Sign up for the Traveller Deals newsletter
Get exclusive travel deals delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now.