Bangor in County Down, the Titanic Quarter and family meet up

We caught a train from nearby Botanic Station to Bangor yesterday morning. Bangor is a seaside resort on the southern side of Belfast Lough, 22 klm east of the city centre. It's fair to say its heyday as a beach resort is well and truly over, but apparently there are plans to redevelop the sea front in the works, which is not before its time. It was a warmer, sometimes sunny day yesterday so it was nice to breathe the sea air and enjoy a relaxing train ride with good views of Belfast Lough and the pretty villages along the way. We enjoyed a long walk around the sea front at Bangor.

The Bangor Marina is one of the  largest in Ireland.

Victorian era guest houses line the sea front area - as well as some very upmarket private homes with great views out to the mouth of Belfast Lough.

There was a small beach area looking out to Bangor Bay - we were amused by the lengthy list of advice for those people risking taking a swim (like wear a wet suit, let someone know where you are, have your mobile phone with you in a waterproof bag etc).

Bangor City Hall is quite spectacular. The former home of the Hon Robert Ward back in the 1850s, the writer CS Lewis was a frequent visitor back in the day. These days it must be very nice to have council chambers in a setting like this.

On the way back to Botanic we stopped off at the Titanic Quarter, the site of the old Belfast shipyards, established when the city was the leading shipbuilder in the world and the Harland and Wolff company dominated the local economy. 

H & W is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the White Star Line, including of course the RMS Titanic. (Incidentally the P & O ship Canberra was also built in Belfast.) The huge gantry cranes (Samson and Goliath) are real landmarks over the Belfast skyline. Even though they're mostly redundant now I think they will be preserved because of their landmark value.

There's not much shipbuilding happening these days in Belfast but this whole area is being developed as a tourist attraction on the back of the Titanic's fame and as a new high rise residential development. 

The spectacular Titanic Belfast building dominates the old docklands, right where the Titanic was designed, built and launched (back in 1912).

The tourist attraction is basically 9 floors (and 2 hours) of digital experiences telling the story of Titanic from go to whoa. 

We just didn't feel up to this crowded glitzy production today, so instead, made our way to the old Harland and Wolff Drawing Offices for a quiet drink and the chance to get a feel for a surviving building from the era that was crucial in the design and constructing of all these world class ships, as well as the ill fated Titanic.

This was in Drawing Office 1 where a whole team of naval architects worked on the plans for RMS Titanic - now a very light and airy bar area in the converted hotel.

An array of industries associated with shipbuilding - ropebuilding, furniture building, textile workshops, engineering workshops etc developed around the shipyards. This whole area would have been teeming with workers and craftsmen and women in its day. The beautiful timber work of the era is still evident in the Drawing Office furniture and fittings (now converted to the Titanic Hotel - opened in 2017.)

We came back to Tara Lodge for a few hours afterwards because we had a night out planned. Our hotel is in Cromwell Road in the Queens Quarter and looks out onto Wolseley Road - all very English isn't it?

We were very excited to be meeting up with my dear friend Tania's Belfast family last night. To start off S-I-L Lesley had organised us to meet up at the gorgeous old Bittles Pub, just off Victoria Square.

This is a pic of Lesley, me and Tania's Mum Maureen enjoying a pint (Guinness of course) and a good catch up on the past decade since we'd last seen Maureen and Michael in Sydney at one of Tania's memorable parties.

We went on to enjoy a seafood dinner at Fish City - and were the last to leave after spending many hours talking family, the times around when Tania left and the really old days in Belfast when a lot of life was centred on the sea. 

We'll treasure this pic of Lesley and Conor (Tania's brother), Maureen and Michael and us - the last people left in the restaurant. It was that late by the time we'd gone through all those topics and more. They're such warm, giving and generous people - no wonder Tania is the way she is!!!