Belfast Huge student population, Belfast has a vibrant nightlife with something for everyone.

Nowhere are signs of Northern Ireland’s troubled past more evident than in Belfast. Like Berlin, Belfast is a city that is fast reinventing itself and thriving with its redirected and more positive focus of attention. With new hotels, restaurants and bars popping up all over the city, much of the urban decay has been cleaned up and now reveals an up-and-coming city ripe for tourism.

Easy to get around, most of the city’s points of interest are within easy walking distance of each other. Visit Titanic Belfast, the world’s largest Titanic visitor experience with nine interactive galleries, and see the historic site next door where the infamous ship was constructed. Visit the notorious Crumlin Road Gaol; opened in 1846, its doors remained open for 150 years housing 25,000 inmates during that time including many historical figures, murderers, suffragettes and republican and loyalist prisoners. You could easily spend hours wandering around the Ulster Museum set in the grounds of the beautiful Botanic Gardens. It includes items from the shipwreck in 1588 of Girona, a Spanish Armada vessel, Princess Takabuti – a 2,500 year old Egyptian mummy and a fossilised portion of a 200-million-year-old seabed. See the Belfast City Hall, a majestic looking Classical Renaissance style building that was completed in 1906. View Belfast’s own leaning tower, the Albert Memorial Clock. Built on reclaimed land from the river, its 35 metres high and was built in the 1865. Head out to splendid looking Belfast Castle on the slopes of Cavehill Country Park for fantastic views of the city and Belfast Lough.

No visit to Belfast is complete without doing a Black Cab tour of the city. With unbiased, entertaining and informative commentary from the taxi driver, you’ll learn about and see the places where much of the political conflict occurred during the “troubles”. See the chilling murals on Falls and Shankill Roads; the memorial gardens dedicated to the people who fought during the 30 years of troubles and the Peaceline, an infamous wall designed to keep Nationalists and Loyalists apart. Another tour worth doing for fans of Game of Thrones is the tour of the same name. Northern Ireland is the principle filming location for the popular TV series and the tour will take you to many of the settings where filming takes place.

For a city of its size, Belfast has a surprisingly large choice of dining options from fine dining to gastro pubs and everything in between. With its huge student population, Belfast also has a vibrant nightlife with something for everyone. Enjoy a traditional Irish music session or some live music in an old pub, a cheeky pint in a beer garden or a night of dancing and decadence in one of the popular nightclubs.