Belfast boasts a massive arts festival, the new Odyssey Complex, the Ulster
Museum in the Botanic Gardens, with perhaps the best-known collection of gold
and silver jewellery recovered by divers in 1968 from the Spanish Armada treasure
ship Girona, wrecked off the Giant's Causeway in 1588.
The Linen Hall Library, located near the City Hall, was made in 1788 and has
an important Irish collection of over 20,000 volumes, with a special section
on Robert Burns. The conservationist National Trust has recently restored the
Crown Liquor Saloon, Belfast’s most famous pub, which was once a railway
hotel.
Belfast has many art galleries such as St Anne’s Cathedral for example,
covered arcades with souvenirs of Irish linen, pottery and hand-cut crystal
and a well-organized Grand Opera House. There are beautiful botanic gardens.
Belfast Zoo is in a picturesque mountain park high above the city.
Belfast is where the Titanic was built and a visit to the historic Harbour
Office at the Port is most recommended. Also worth seeing is the City Hall,
built around 1903 in the grand Classical Renaissance style, with beautiful Italian
marble interior.
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The southern part of the city is good for moderately priced restaurants, pubs,
accommodation, shopping and theatrical shows. Some of Belfast's grandest buildings
are banks. The interior of the Ulster Bank (1860), for example, is as spectacular
as a Venetian palace.
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