Apr 24

Written by: chris
4/24/2012 

I broadcast the Travel show from Belfast in Northern Ireland on the 100th anniversary to the day of the tragedy of Titanic’s maiden voyage. A momentous occasion and a memorable travel experience…

Titanic Belfast

To commemorate the centenary, the world’s largest Titanic Visitor Experience has just opened in Belfast on the banks of the River Lagan, where this great ship was conceived and built. And what an experience! The external architecture resembles an iceberg with its silvery shards of ice, while inside, the visitor is guided through the Titanic story from its inception to its current ocean floor wreckage.


Booming Belfast of a hundred years ago is brought to life and you take a ride through the sights, sounds and smells of the shipyard where she was built. The launch into Belfast Lough and the luxurious fit-out of the liner are followed by the maiden voyage. Then - disaster in the North Atlantic on April 14th 1912 when the iceberg was struck.

The story continues with how the disaster has made the oceans safer for those who followed and how the Titanic has inspired Hollywood. Finally we journey two miles down beneath the Atlantic to see her final resting place. It’s quite simply, THE definitive Titanic experience. You can see a brief video on the Travel Show website at: www.chrisrobinsontravelshow.ca and scroll down to the video clip.

SS Nomadic, Titanic Dock and Pumphouse

The Titanic Quarter in Belfast holds other treasure for those following the Titanic story. The SS Nomadic is the last surviving White Star Line vessel and was used to ferry 1st and 2nd Class passengers to the Titanic from Cherbourg in France. It is now currently being restored and will be open for visitors in the fall of 2012. I was privileged to have a hard hat tour of this vessel which is in Hamilton Dock right next to Titanic Belfast.


Titanic’s Dock and Pump-House represent Titanic’s last footprint on land and are amazingly well-preserved reminders of the great vessel. You can tour the giant pumps that drained the 900 foot long dock, and soon you will also be able to descend into the depth of the dock itself. Then there’s the Harland and Wolff Drawing Offices where Titanic was designed and the Titanic and Olympic Slipways where she and her sister ship were launched…

Belfast City Hall: The Stone Titanic

The Belfast community commemorated the Titanic centenary in many ways: respectfully at an inter-faith remembrance service, raucously at pop concert with Olly Murs, Sean Paul and Rizzle Kicks…but it’s at Belfast City Hall that I perhaps best felt the civic pride and prosperity that birthed the great ship.


Built just a few years before the Titanic and heavily influenced by Lord Pirrie, Chairman of Harland and Wolff when Titanic was built, this great edifice has become known as The Stone Titanic for its many links to the liner. The rotunda houses many glowing stained glass windows and the same craftsmen who fitted out the Titanic worked on the interiors here. I couldn’t resist sitting the Lord Mayor’s chair in the Council Chambers and imagining the Belfast of Titanic’s time…

Thanks

My grateful thanks to those who organized my trip to Belfast: Jayne and Jennifer from the Tourism Ireland team here in Toronto and to Sousie and her team from the Northern Ireland Tourism Board in Belfast. I commend their websites at www.discoverireland.com and www.discovernorthernireland.com.