Northern Ireland: Day 3 Belfast

After our crazy hike on Sunday, we drove straight back to the hotel in Belfast.  We didn't even stop to take photos of scenic views. We dragged our muddy selves up to the room and took turns washing the Irish dirt down the drain.  Clean and revived, we walked a few steps across the street from the hotel to Pizza Express.  This is a family favorite restaurant for us:  1) pizza - thin crust with nice sauce, 2) table service - ie not fast food, 3) serves alcohol.  I had a large wine and Steve had an even larger beer and we let the kids get dessert when the pizza had been devoured.  Having skipped lunch, we didn't mind overindulging at dinner. 

A good night sleep for us all and we were ready to see what Belfast had to offer.  We headed straight for the new development called the Odyssey in the dock area, or Titanic quarter as that is where the ship was built.  We had a quick drive past Samson and Goliath, the huge structures used to built the ship.

Samson and Goliath are the names of the two yellows structures.

But as interesting as the Titanic is, more interesting is the W5 (stands for who, what, when, where, why), the science center at the Odyssey in Belfast.  It appeared we may have been the first guests of the day when we dashed in from a torrential downpour at 10:15.  The British schools have half term next week, but I thought school groups would be filling up the museum; however, we practically had the place to ourselves.  We spent the whole morning working on hands on exhibits.  We had to drag the kids out into the Odyssey where there are several restaurants to choose from for lunch.  Of course we had to promise that we would go back to the W5 after eating.  We had not even finished exploring the second floor and there were still 2 more to go! 

Katie ended up on the single pulley and was having a tough time pulling herself up.

Steve and Jacob built race cars and then raced them.

Katie designed the butterfly that then flew through the forest.

Lunch was quite and ordeal.  The tapas restaurant, Chinese food place, and Indian options were not appealing to any of the kids.  There were two other very likely possibilities:  an American 50's style cafe with burgers, shakes and the works or Pizza Hut.  Remember dinner last night was Pizza Express and Cameron even had pizza on Saturday in Dublin.  Somehow the votes were cast and we were eating pizza...again!  No worries, the kids were happy.

After lunch we headed back in to the W5 where we managed to spend the rest of the afternoon.  We finally launched ourselves out at 4:18 (it closes at 5pm) mostly because Steve and I were getting tired of watching the kids make yet another still action movie.  Surprisingly the sun was shining as we left so we took our time finding our way back to the hotel.  We took a driving tour of the city making sure we made it past some of the highlights like City Hall and St. Anne's Cathedral.

We parked the car in front of the hotel (very lucky spot) and walked to dinner at the Crown Bar and Saloon.  The saloon is a listed landmark for its Victorian architecture.  With the kids, we weren't going to be able to hang out in the bar, but rather made our way upstairs to the dining rooms for dinner.  Traditional pub food was on the menu and everyone but Cameron found something they enjoyed.  Steve, Jacob and I all went for the very traditional steak and ale pie made with Guiness.  Satiated, our Belfast day was done.  We would be checking out and heading north in the morning.