As the title states, a rather fitting summary of a superb weekend in a vibrant city that has a much going on cant recommend it highly enough.
It was an early flight from Newcastle via Easyjet bang on time (flight took 35 minutes !, it can take me that long to get to work some days !), straight through airport, as we only had hand luggage, and onto airport shuttle £10 return (tkts sold by Easyjet in flght or in the terminal) took 30 minutes through so lovely countryside and some deep snow in places but nothing in other a miles down the road very weird.
Arrived at city centre bus terminal and thanks to my research (sponsored by Google maps) short walk past rather grand BBC building we arrived at Radisson Blu situated in the redeveloped Gas Works, ultra modern hotel in with some great industrial old red brick buildings.
Lovely girl on reception give us our room at 9am and upon asking where we were from as it must have been an early flight she offered us discounted the full breakfast at our booking price, (£8) rather than the walk in rather steep £16.95 !, very kind offer and was in keeping with the whole weekend
Drop our bag in the lovely corner room over looking the water feature and old buildings then had a superb hearty Irish breakfast and getting room so early we had time for an hours nap before heading into city centre, we'd have been knackered if they hadn't been so kind to give us our room rather than leaving our case but I suppose that's the service you get using good quality hotels
It was a 5 minute wander into city centre and after look around we took the sightseeing tour (see thread below) once again customer service was superb, I asked price jovial guy laughed and said well you don't look like students too well dressed and you' ve shaved but you'll be students of life and we all are always learning so you are students and give us the discounted price that was the theme of the weekend the people of Belfast are superb great craic.
After superb tour did the obligatory looking around shops then a few pints of the black stuff, unfortunately the only up owns by National Trust The Crown was closed so found another great traditional pub for a bite to eat, before a few in the hotel them crashed after a long day.
Did the Titanic on Saturday (check 3rds review, as he review is better than I could do), I loved it wife was a tad disappointed at lack of artefacts from the shop itself, building is superb as is the entire site).
Then heads to the MAC for the Andy Warhol exhibition we wanted to see, as excellent as you'd expect from such a talent.
City has some great old pubs like The Duke of York & Bittles Bar to name a few we liked.
All in all it was a great weekend and would highly recommend it to someone looking for a city break close to home, shirt & cheap flights excellent local transport.
Belfast has and may well still have issues/problems but the people are rightly proud of what they have and are so welcoming and keen to help visitors, at least 3 times we stopped and could have looks like we were looking for somewhere and were approached by people offering help & advise such genuine people.
Like I say don't judge a book by its cover Belfast is a great city give it a to you won't be disappointed.
It was an early flight from Newcastle via Easyjet bang on time (flight took 35 minutes !, it can take me that long to get to work some days !), straight through airport, as we only had hand luggage, and onto airport shuttle £10 return (tkts sold by Easyjet in flght or in the terminal) took 30 minutes through so lovely countryside and some deep snow in places but nothing in other a miles down the road very weird.
Arrived at city centre bus terminal and thanks to my research (sponsored by Google maps) short walk past rather grand BBC building we arrived at Radisson Blu situated in the redeveloped Gas Works, ultra modern hotel in with some great industrial old red brick buildings.
Lovely girl on reception give us our room at 9am and upon asking where we were from as it must have been an early flight she offered us discounted the full breakfast at our booking price, (£8) rather than the walk in rather steep £16.95 !, very kind offer and was in keeping with the whole weekend
Drop our bag in the lovely corner room over looking the water feature and old buildings then had a superb hearty Irish breakfast and getting room so early we had time for an hours nap before heading into city centre, we'd have been knackered if they hadn't been so kind to give us our room rather than leaving our case but I suppose that's the service you get using good quality hotels
It was a 5 minute wander into city centre and after look around we took the sightseeing tour (see thread below) once again customer service was superb, I asked price jovial guy laughed and said well you don't look like students too well dressed and you' ve shaved but you'll be students of life and we all are always learning so you are students and give us the discounted price that was the theme of the weekend the people of Belfast are superb great craic.
After superb tour did the obligatory looking around shops then a few pints of the black stuff, unfortunately the only up owns by National Trust The Crown was closed so found another great traditional pub for a bite to eat, before a few in the hotel them crashed after a long day.
Did the Titanic on Saturday (check 3rds review, as he review is better than I could do), I loved it wife was a tad disappointed at lack of artefacts from the shop itself, building is superb as is the entire site).
Then heads to the MAC for the Andy Warhol exhibition we wanted to see, as excellent as you'd expect from such a talent.
City has some great old pubs like The Duke of York & Bittles Bar to name a few we liked.
All in all it was a great weekend and would highly recommend it to someone looking for a city break close to home, shirt & cheap flights excellent local transport.
Belfast has and may well still have issues/problems but the people are rightly proud of what they have and are so welcoming and keen to help visitors, at least 3 times we stopped and could have looks like we were looking for somewhere and were approached by people offering help & advise such genuine people.
Like I say don't judge a book by its cover Belfast is a great city give it a to you won't be disappointed.
