The capital of Northern Ireland has a lot to offer and as a bonus for those without passports from the UK, you don't need one to travel just a form of photographic ID and kids don't even need that!
Belfast is a perfectly accessible location for all the family and there is so much to offer. Here is how we spent our 72 hours in Belfast:
Day 1:
Our flights out were 7am to maximise the amount of time that we could spend (I will warn though with only a 45 minute flight and most hotels not allowing to check in until 3pm, it might be best to get one around 11am instead). We picked up the bus from the airport straight into the city centre, it cost around £8 for a return ticket and took around 30 mins drive. We decided to pass some time by exploring the city on foot, as we only had hand luggage we didn't need to worry about carrying them around with us (although i would recommend checking them in somewhere - more on that later). We basically wandered and saw what we wanted to see, I knew of some of the places I wanted to visit and we managed to tick a lot of them off on the first day.
For those of you who are insta fans, there are so many instagrammable places in Belfast centre, here are some of my favourites from the first day;
Commercial Court
Dunbar Street
Mackles Ice Cream
The Irish Flat Iron
Joys Entry
Most of the entries
We also headed to St Georges Market which is an absolute must if you are there at the weekend, honestly this indoor market had everything from amazing food stalls, to live music, to fresh food, to little independent traders. We stayed here wandering around and grabbing some lunch for a good 2 hours.
We then headed over to our hotel to check in, we stayed at House Hotel Belfast which in itself is amazingly insta worthy from the giant tree in the bar to the beautiful rooms. We also decided to have tea here as well to save anymore walking on our first day, if you do want to eat or drink here make sure you make a booking as it gets busy at the weekend and is a prime place for girls nights out due to the aesthetic.
Day 2:
One of the main things I wanted to see whilst in Northern Ireland was the Giants Causeway and because me and G are both big GOT fans we decided to book a coach trip (booked in advance through trip advisor) to see some of the GOT filming sites around the coastline and also the Giants Causeway.
The coach picked us up at 8:30am and returned back into the centre about 5:30pm so this is an all day trip for sure. The driver was brilliant and had loads of knowledge around the history of the places we visited and the filming of GOT too. It only cost us £25 per person for the excursion and was well worth the money in my opinion.
We stopped at the following places during the excursion:
Carrickfergus Castle
Carnlough - This was where Aria was filmed coming out of the Bravos Canal
Cushendun - The caves where the Red Witch gave birth to the shadow assassin
Dark Hedges - Massive insta spot & used as the road to Kings Landing
Fullerton Arms - Lunch stop (lunch was additional charge) a GOT themed pub
Giants Causeway
Dunlace Castle
Once we were back from our day trip we had tea booked at Berts Jazz Club, this is a restaurant that has live jazz music playing. There are offers on here too for 2/3 course meals which meant that we got 3 courses for £32.50 and the most delicious marmalade cocktail!
After tea I wanted to head back to Commercial Court to see the umbrellas all lit up but unfortunately it wasn't but we did get to see the City Hall lit up and that was beautiful.
Day 3:
On our last day we checked out of the hotel at 10am after enjoying breakfast there, we walked into the centre and decided to check our bags into a local travel agents for the day so we wouldn't have to carry them around all day. I think it cost £5 for 1 bag to be stored all day, I honestly wish we had done this the first day as it would have made life a lot simpler.
We headed over to the riverside so that we could do the Glass of Throne Trail, this is 6 massive stained glass windows that are installed all over the Titanic Quarter that show varying scenes from the show. I will warn you though, it is a bit of a walk and by this time we were shattered (if we went back I would do this bit on the first day as it's further out from the centre and then done the centre on the last day).
Whilst walking around the Titanic Quarter we saw the famous Samson & Goliath cranes, the Titanic Museum (which I believe is supposed to be brilliant but we didn't go in this time), the HMS Caroline and the Salmon of Knowledge. We then hired bikes from the various points around the city, these are incredibly affordable and charge by how long you use them which only costs us about £5 each. You can pop them back into any of the points across the city and it's charged directly through the app.
We then picked up our bags, jumped back on the airport bus and headed home after an amazing 72 hours in Belfast.
Accommodation: £331 - 2 nights/3days
Flights: £113.92 - return flights for 2
Excursions: £50 - Giants Causeway trip for 2
You can check out videos from our trip on our instagram here!