BELFAST

Took a train 2 hours north to Belfast along farmlands, water and beaches. Beautiful.

Pulled into Belfast about 10:30 am and we were met by most delightful guide named Michael whose enthusiasm and knowledge made our day there fascinating and special.

Our first stop was Stormont - the home of the Irish Assembly. A most impressive approach from the bottom of a mile long hill. We had a chance to go into the rotunda area decorated with beautifully painted ceilings. The views of the countryside from the porch was amazing.

Next stop was beautiful Belfast Castle with its lovely flower gardens and many cat images including a topiary cat, cats in frescoes on the plaza, statues smelling tulips and relaxing on the edge of a fountain. Quite charming!

Lunch was at the shipyard where the Titanic was built. The well is HUGE. They are preparing for the 100th anniversary of the event.

We toured the areas of "the Troubles" - which was serious, sad and a little scary. There are huge murals everywhere along both Shankill Road, the Protestant area and Falls Road, the Catholic area. Some of the murals are in memory of various leaders.....some seem to be warnings to the "other side." Even though the peace accord went into effect in the early 90's it seems to be somewhat tenuous. There is a Peace Wall that is still locked at night. All the police stations are heavily fortified and secured.

We had a chance to walk into beautiful Christ Church were there is a painting of a madonna that is worth millions of pounds!

Belfast has a lot of very modern buildings set among very old ones. The fact that there are glass buildings the locals say in an idication of the mostly peaceful conditions there now.

Our first "real" newspaper visit of the trip came at the Belfast Telegraph which has been in business sinc 1870. Our host was the Director of Digital Development, Gerry Patterson.
He's worked there for 17 years - 14 of those in on line! He told us that Broadband is in virtually 100% of Northern Ireland - quite a contrast to the south. The Web version has a huge global audience. About 5-6 people work on the on line version with 500 on the print side. Not much luck getting user generated content yet but they are working on it. Picture galleries account for about 40% of the page views. Shared his own story of growing up during the Troubles. He is Catholic and his first girlfriend was Protestant. She hid him from her family. In the end their relationship had to end. He sees a billboard on his way to work that still scares him: Prepare for Peace - Ready for War.