We had to drag ourselves out of bed at 5.30am for our 7.30am Easyjet flight to Belfast. Sue was lovely enough to get up equally early to drive us to the airport where we just fit in a quick breaky before the short flight. We were soon on the bus into Belfast & then dropping off our bags at the guesthouse before going to find a stop near the very grand Queens University for the Hop on Hop off bus which we purchased as a combo with our Giants Causeway day trip for tomorrow. We did the first half of the tour circuit which travelled through the Falls & Shankill road areas divided by the Peace Walls & past many murals painted during 'The Troubles'. The commentary was very informative & its crazy to think how much the lives of innocent people in Belfast & throughout Northern Ireland were affected for so may years. Despite 'The Troubles' apparently finishing in 1998 there is still quite a lot of violence which continues. As it is currently the marching season there was a riot with 1200 people in the main shopping street of Belfast the night before we arrived in which 56 police officers were injured. We had noticed a lot of the armoured police vans since we had arrived this morning & a very prevalent police presence around town. We got off the bus at the Titanic quarter where there is a very tall, (the same height as the titanic was) very overpriced titanic centre where we only visited the cafe but I lined up for far too long to get an overpriced but very tasty sausage roll before we wandered outside to have a look at the SS Nomadic which is the little sister to Titanic but only a quarter of the size. Soon back on the tour bus we completed the second loop which passed the parliament buildings & some residential murals before hopping off in the city centre to get a view over Belfast from the Victoria square shopping centre glass dome roof viewing platform. From here it was a quick wander through the city centre streets (thankfully sans riots!) before a quick second lunch at Subway. We were quite tired from our early start so instead of getting the bus which went back down to the university we accidentally got the wrong bus which meant we ended up doing a repeat tour of the parliament area of Belfast before finally getting back to guesthouse to rest & nap. With helicopters circling parts of Belfast obviously looking out for an trouble we headed out in the evening with a craving for a steak, finally settling on the Whetherspoons pub as it was the cheapest & it well presented & cooked too. We made it an early night after this heading back to the guesthouse to watch some tv & then bed.