We woke up to a blue sky morning and decided we probably needed to take advantage of the weather and head in a little bit early into the city of Belfast. We bid Ellie farewell, and David kindly drove us about 10 miles into the city. He gave us a few more highlights of things we might want to know and then dropped us off at our main attraction of the day.
We were going to the Titanic Museum. As it turns out the famous Titanic ship was built in Belfast, and they have a state-of-the-art museum, focused on the context in which the Titanic was built, the process of building it, and of course, the terrible accident that caused the ship to sink.
We were able to get our luggage settled in at a luggage locker and went up to begin our Titanic experience.
A lot of the earlier portions of the exhibit really focused on the growth of Belfast from a smaller town to a city. Belfast had so many industries, and was the flax/linen capital of the world. This got an especially big bump when during the American Civil War cotton was much less available, and linen took its place for many purposes.
There are many other industries, including a major aerated water industry that especially focused on ginger ale, tobacco with cigarettes made here, whiskey, and rope making.
But it also became quite a place for major ship-making. We learned lots of things about the whole process of creating a waterfront that was ideal to build ships.
We learned all about the ship-building process from design all the way through to finishing and being put out in the water for the Titanic. They did a beautiful job of sharing. There were lots of the interesting details about how one would go about making such a large ship. At that time, the largest in the world! Lots of photos and videos and there was even a Disney-type ride where we got to go in a car riding around watching the process of building a ship.
Eventually, we got to display areas where they showed how grand the accommodations were, especially of course, for first class, but also very fine accommodations for second and third class. There were lots and lots of beautiful things to look at. You could feel how excited people would be to go off on this grand adventure on this state of the art new ship in 1912.
The ship was loaded with 1600 passengers and 800 crew members. again really interesting interactive opportunities to learn about what the very crew members would’ve done, and which parts of the ship various classes of passengers would’ve been on. They also showed what kind of food and china were used. They really painted a powerful picture.
And then only a few days out at see, the unthinkable happened: they sighted and then struck an iceberg. There was rather a perfect storm that happened in terms of problems. Nobody believed it could’ve been possible that this brand new ship would sync, but it went down rapidly.
There was a segment that focused on eyewitness accounts of the ship going down and people being rescued. There were so many deaths that happened. A total of 1517.This is all so sobering in the face of the hopefulness of this new venture.
After focusing on the survivors, there was quite a section that was entitled "never again". And they gave us some glimpses of the inquiry that happened nearly immediately after the Titanic went down and the resulting rule changes for safety issues, many of which continue today.
The end of the exhibit focused on the process of searching for the Titanic down in the Atlantic Ocean. This was a Hercules process and, eventually, it has been found, but not fully explored.
At the very end of the exhibit, there was a very somber room with places to look down and gaze on video representations of the remains of the ship as it would be seen at the bottom of the ocean. very profound. And right before you could leave there was an opportunity to get your picture taken on the bow of the Titanic rail ala the movie. Patti insisted, Dick was willing. Don’t we look cute?
We then walked about a mile along the area where the shipbuilding used to be. It was interesting imagining workers for so many years coming down and building these amazing ships.
We eventually worked our way into a shopping center in the middle of the city that happened to have an Apple computer store. Our laptop was acting up and not charging well, and we were glad to be put in touch with a couple of people in the Genius Bar who did some testing cords, did a bunch of things and then it was working. We’re not sure what the problem was, but we were glad to, have it touched by geniuses and hopefully will get us at least through till we get back home.
Then, a little over a mile till we got to our next Airbnb check-in. This one was hosted by a really lovely couple from Belfast, Sun and Geordie. It’s a cozy room in a sweet apartment and we were made to feel well at home right away. We went and grabbed a little food at a falafel Middle Eastern restaurant and then came back and went to bed early.
We did enjoy walking back through the neighborhood as we are trying to really get a handle of these Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. We were interested in seeing some more of the Protestant preparations for an event that will happen later in the week on July 12 where they will burn these giant pallet towers of wood.
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