We set off fairly early in the morning heading towards the Botanic Gardens. The weather wasn't as good as in Dorset and at times I felt it might eventually rain, although I didn't intend to let this minor incident affect our trip.
The Botanic Gardens are said to have opened in 1828 as a private park, which only allowed members of the public visits on Sundays till 1895, when it finally became public. The Palm House Conservatory which immediately caught our attention is believed to be one of the earliest examples of curvilinear cast iron glasshouses in the world.
We strolled around for quite a while and did enjoy the peacefulness, the morning freshness and above all the green, which is getting scarce in our motherland, as stretches of terrain are occupied by houses rather than gardens and open air spaces.
We headed towards the Lyric Theatre to collect some Theatre tickets for the evening and in doing so, walked around a part of the city along the river Lagan we wouldn't have seen had we gone straight to the city centre.
We came across some rather interesting graffitis as we got closer to the heart of the city, where we intended to visit the City Hall.
St. Bartholomew's Church
In Portland stone, the Belfast City Hall is in Baroque revival style and does stand out no matter where you look at it from.
The interior's dome was eye catching and so were the great hall and the various reception rooms. We didn't wait for the public guided tour and ventured onto the visitor's exhibition ground floor instead. It covers the diversity of Belfast across a variety of themes stretching over 16 rooms, which we found to be very well organised, providing the visitors with fairly detailed information.
The stained glass windows marking historic events, which were spread along the building and which we admired for quite a while, are said to be all original to the building since 1906.
The famine window (right) commemorating the plight of all those citizens of Belfast who died as a result of typhus and cholera in the years 1846, 1847 and 1848 and who were laid to rest in mass common graves.
As we walked out I looked back and didn't resist taking a couple more photos.
(To be continued)
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