Belfast and the Peace Walls

Thursday we went to Belfast and did a bus tour there.  We had heard that there really wasn’t much to do or see in Belfast, but we had gotten combo tickets to the two cities the day before. 

I ended up liking the Belfast tour waaay more than the Dublin one (hard to imagine after my unending praise for Dublin yesterday right?).  There weren’t as many old buildings but the history was crazy!  I don’t know how much you know about the unrest between the Unionists (Protestants) and the Nationalists (Catholics).  (The tour guide assured us that it was a political conflict, and not a religious one, and that the two different sides just happen to be supported by the two major religious groups.

Here are the peace walls.  The tour guide told us before we saw them that they weren’t anything like the Berlin Wall, but when we finally saw them, I wasn’t really sure what she meant.  I suppose she just meant that the city wasn’t divided exactly in half like Berlin was, but there’s a wall dividing the different communities!  I thought it was pretty crazy.  I mean, the conflicts aren’t what they used to be, but they still close the gates at night!

Each side of the wall was fascinating, because they had bomb sites or murals that vilified/glorified the same people from the different perspectives. 

Here’s one side’s murals.  I think this was on the Unionist side.

I thought it was really interesting.  Kate’s grandma didn’t like it very much though. 

Probably the funniest part of the tour was about the Europa Hotel.

This hotel is the most bombed hotel in Europe.  They’ve found something like 70 bombs there, but only 37 or something have actually gone off.  They started giving out commemorative ties to the guests in the hotel who were there when a bomb went off, and the tour guide told us that there was once an American tourist who wanted a tie so bad that he stayed there until a bomb went off- 5 or 6 weeks!