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Day 3: Titanique!

After a very nice Ulster Fry for breakfast, we started Day 3 by checking out of the Ballymac Hotel, a well appointed small hotel just outside Belfast. Then we set off in Hyacinth to find our way to the Titanic Quarter. No prizes for guessing where our first stop was...

Visiting the Titanic Experience is almost a rite of passage for tourists to Belfast these days. Situated in a purpose built (and quite striking) building at the head of the former Harland and Wolff dry docks, the galleries feature a wealth of information, interactive exhibits and artefacts telling the story of the Titanic. Our highlights included the shipyard ride, a cable car which takes you through a recreation of the shipyard, and one of the final galleries which has a projection of the shipwreck along with displays of recovered artefacts. As with any good tourist attraction, there was a gift shop. Fraser only just resisted buying a book of first accounts of the Titanic disaster, while Alicia narrowly avoided the temptation to add ‘Titanic Ted’, a teddy bear in a sailor outfit, to our road trip team. 

After a quick pitstop at The House of Them for two very tasty and pleasingly large cookies and some drinks, we snuck our way along to the Botanic District for our first unauthorised bookshop of the trip - No Alibis.


No Alibis wasn't originally on our list. Now, we promise (pinky promise even) that considering there are 42 bookshops actually on the list, we started out with every intention of sticking to just those. Oh no. What a surprise. We were recommended another shop and immediately caved on our "no deviations from the list rule". Fraser and Alicia failing to exert willpower in the face of books? Unheard of, I'm sure. No Alibis is a comfy and friendly space stuffed full of books - there's something for everyone whether you're a budding Poirot or prefer less crime-ridden reads. They also have the coolest selection of postcards as bookmarks - we spent almost as long poring over those as we did choosing books (Alicia changes her mind a lot, ok?)

Having cruelly abandoned Hyacinth in a side street near No Alibis (we'll pay for that with an unwanted detour later, no doubt), we strolled into Belfast City centre for a small bit of sightseeing and some dinner. A quick stop at the tourist information/souvenir shop did provide more book buying temptation; while Alicia bought some postcards and unilaterally chose their NI fridge magnet (if it has sheep on, she accepts no alternative suggestions), a particularly catchy cover caught Fraser’s eye. He demurred for now, but took a note in case he sees it somewhere else on the tour.

Our overnight stop for tonight isn't really a stop at all, given that we'll be moving in our sleep on the overnight ferry to Liverpool. Let's hope this morning was the closest we're going to get to a Titanic Experience for one trip. Plenty of bookshops to visit tomorrow. And they are actually ones on the list.



Day 3 Roundup: 

Miles Driven: 22

(Unauthorised) Books Resisted: 2

(Unauthorised) Books Bought: 1

Rivets Used to Hold Together the Hull (and Rest) of the Fateful Titanic: Over 3,000,000

Alicia's Artsy Photo Ideas That Were Scuppered By Rain: 1

Times Google Maps Failed to Understand Lane Mathematics: 6



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