Big in Belfast

April 2012 and Belfast is in the grip of Titanic fever. It's 100 years since the ship that wasn't meant to sink sank, and the city is awash with Titanics and Titanoraks; everywhere you look, there's Titanic tea and Titanic chocolate fudge for sale, Titanic crisps and Titanic strawberry jam, Titanic T-shirts, ashtrays, fridge magnets, pencil sharpeners, snow domes, key rings and bookcases full of Titanic books.

Every second shop window in Belfast's main shopping street has a dedicated Titanic display; replica Titanics made from hundreds of helium-filled balloons float above shopping centre atriums; coffee shops and restaurants feature Titanic menus and themed dinners; museums and galleries across the city have Titanic-themed exhibitions; the Titanic memorial garden at City Hall has had a makeover and there's even Titanic the Musical playing at the Grand Opera House, although tickets are pretty hard to get.

For an event that is supposed to commemorate the 1500 lives lost in one of the world's worst maritime disasters, it all has a slightly surreal, carnival-like air, although organisers insist that the celebrations are focused on the launch of the ship rather than its tragic demise. Presumably, the festivities will fade away once the centenary is over, but in Belfast, where the world's most famous ship was designed and built, the Titanic is here to stay.

Double-decker Titanic Explorer buses trundle Titanoraks (those with an interest - you could say obsession - with the Titanic) around the new Titanic Quarter, as the old shipyard and dockland area at the mouth of the Lagan River is now called, and red-shirted Titanic walking guides, all self-confessed Titanoraks, lead groups Pied Piper-style past the dry dock, pump house and other buildings and patches of concrete associated with the building of the famous ship.

The centrepiece of the new tourism precinct is the newly opened £97 million ($154 million) Titanic Belfast, the world's largest visitor attraction. Built beside the original slipway in the Harland & Wolff shipyard, the six-storey museum is the same height as the ship. Its exterior is clad in more than 3000 individual aluminum panels designed to resemble four gigantic hulls that lean out from the ground, towering above visitors as they walk around it.

Inside are nine galleries, where floor-to-ceiling video screens and displays bring to life the story behind the ship, from boomtown Belfast at the turn of the 20th century to the building of the vessel, its launch and fit-out, the sinking and the aftermath, the discovery of the wreck and the myths and legends that have surrounded the tragedy since.

It's more theme park than museum, with a ride that takes you to the top of the gantry and through the shipbuilding process with special effects re-creating the sights, sounds and smells of the shipyard. There is a 3D cave where you can "walk" the corridors of the ship, re-creations of the first-class, second-class and steerage cabins, and a theatre that shows underwater exploratory footage of the wreck lying on the ocean floor. We spent the best part of three hours at the centre and it would be easy to spend even longer.