Belfast: 1 city 2 faces

Rest days - Friday 6th & Saturday 7th, April 2018: Belfast 0 km / 377 km, 13°C, rainy

This is quite a strange city, and finally, my opinion is Belfast has 2 faces. The modern one, represented by the Titanic Quarter, with the arena, illustrating the economic development of Belfast and Northern Ireland since the end of the Troubles (thanks also to Tourism and Game of Thrones). And the old one, inherited from the Troubles, with some abandoned building, closed shops, and the wall. I started my visit of the city by the now-famous Belfast Titanic, an interesting museum mostly about the construction of the ship. It well explained the situation of the city at the beginning of the 20th century, all the materials requested to build such a ship and why it's been built. There's also a part of the museum dedicated to the catastrophe. Titanic always feels sinister to me, especially how all these people died in the cold North Atlantic ocean. For this part, I think I would prefer the Titanic itinerant exhibition I saw 9 years ago in Montreal because every visitor was given a ticket of one of the passenger, and only at the end, you discovered if your passenger survived or not (I was lucky, I got a 2nd class girl ticket, who survived) and there were objects (even toilets) collected from the ship on the ocean floor. Titanic is a sad story, for those who left Ireland with the hope of a better future in America, and for those who worked so hard in Belfast to build that ship.

Then I decided to take the black taxi tour. And my driver was fantastic. I really explained the situation. I heard a little bit of the Troubles when I was a young girl. I still remember how I was shocked by that picture in the newspaper with that father carrying his crying daughter in his arms just after another bomb attack close to a school. Such a situation in peaceful Europe was really unbelievable (well it was just before 9/11, and was quite innocent about how the world could be cruel then). But if you want to know what happened at that time, you should take this tour. We started in front of a closed gate. It was Saturday, and that gate is closed on the weekend, to avoid fights between Catholics and protestants due to alcohol. I was surprised to discover that kind of gate still exists and can still be closed (not to mention about alcohol problem). Then he showed me the painted walls in the protestant part of the city. One of them represents a « protestant martyr » as he was killed. But before he shot 18 Catholics, not only in the heart to kill them, but also in the face, so during the funeral the coffin couldn’t stay open, and their family couldn’t say a proper goodbye. There are many memorial walls like that. On the protestant part, they support Israel, because on the Catholic part they support Palestinian, as they feel colonised just like them. On the Catholic part, there’s a wall dedicated to Bobby Sands, who was the 1st one who died after his hunger strike. Both parts have their martyr. That was the Troubles, and in my opinion, it remains to the Past and History now. Even if there’s a wall in the Protestant side full of pictures of the Queen (my driver said they are fanatics … I think I can agree with him). But the most hurtful for me is what still split the city into 2 parts: the wall. I saw what remains of the wall in Berlin, and believe me, this one is higher. So tall, taller than the trees. And there are houses facing it, with cages on the windows to be protected against rocks or anything that could be thrown over the wall. We talk about the wall Trump wants to build between the USA and Mexico, we talk about the wall between Israel and Palestine, but who knows there’s still a kind of wall like that in Europe? Looks unreal, and it remains unbelievable for me. At least, there’s no more army or policeman at the gates. Thanks to CCTV!