What has Belfast got to offer the traveller?
Created | Updated Oct 8, 2004
Well for a start Belfast is, despite all the media that has been attached to it, quite a safe place to live. A natural harbour port city on the north-east coast of Ireland, it was once the largest seafaring port in the world and the largest exporter of ropes, linen, glass and ships. Now however it is often mentioned in the same breath as riots, social unrest and naked sectarian violence, (well that's what the media would have you believe). However as an inhabitant of this city I can confirm that althought it does have its fair share of unrest, less now than say 10 years ago, it is quite a cool city to live in. Belfast is situated in the lagan vally, its name coming from the Irish 'Beal Feirste' meaning 'The town at the mouth of the river Farset' (incidently if you visitBelfast the river Farset has now been culverted and you will only smell it at the corner of Castle Street and Donegall Place although it still flows down High Street towards the Albert Clock, our very own 'leaning tower'. I digress. The city is surrounded by the castelreagh hills on the south side and the beautiful back mountains on the north. The black mountains are the stop off point of a hugh basalt plateau which stretches from Belfast to the north of Ireland and is the remains of emormous volicanic activity which took place approx. 100 million years ago and which left us the octaginal rocks of the 'Gaint's Causeway' . At the end of the black mountains is 'Cave Hill' which as the name suggests houses caves which played an important part in the 1798 uprising, (it failed!). If you were to look at Cave Hill on a horizontal plane one can make out an outline of a face with a rather crooked nose; it thus earned the title of 'Napolean's Nose'. Belfast houses the longest running daily newspaper in the world - 'The Newsletter'
