Belfast, United Kingdom

Since the 1994-1995 ceasefires, investment has greatly transformed the face of Belfast. From just a trickle of the hardiest independent travelers, tourism has grown into a leading industry in Northern Ireland. Unsurprisingly, hotels have formed a large part of the building boom and an impressive range of hotels, apartments, B&B's, hostels and guesthouses compete for the visitors' custom. What follows is a guide to accommodation in Belfast divided between the city center, the university district, the suburbs and the surrounding countryside, with each section covering a range of pricing options.

The City Center

The most (in)famous hotel in Belfast remains the Europa Hotel, Europe's most frequently bombed building until the onset of the Yugoslav war. Ideally situated close to the City Hall, the Europa is more happily known these days as Bill Clinton's choice of accommodation on one of his three visits to the city. The Europa offers deals all year round and provides a great base from which to explore the heart of the city.

One of the most opulent city center hotels is the Malmaison Hotel, backing on to the spectacular waterfront area with its two new signature buildings, the Waterfront Hall and the Odyssey Arena. Recently refurbished in sumptuous art nouveau style, each of the rooms in the McCausland Hotel is unique, whilst the building's exterior, restored to its original Victorian splendor, is one of the finest structures in Belfast. The Belfast Hilton, directly beside the Waterfront Hall, was one of the first multinationals to arrive in the city in the tentative period immediately after the ceasefires, and has all of the facilities you would expect from this weightiest of chains.

A cheaper option than all of these in the city center would be the Travelodge, where you pay by room rather than by person–an ideal choice if you're touring as a family. If you've arrived with your rucksack, however, make your way over to the Linen House hostel, situated up a side street off Royal Avenue in a converted linen mill. It's cheap, clean, friendly, international, has no curfew and places you just minutes from the shopping district and the Belfast Welcome Center.

The University District

The area surrounding Queen's University sees Belfast at its most cosmopolitan. As most of the city's restaurants, bars, cafes and cinemas conglomerate here, so too do many of the accommodation establishments. Duke's is one of best university area hotels, located just opposite Queen's Film Theatre. Fine dining is also on offer within the hotel complex itself. The Wellington Park Hotel, Madison's and Benedict's all offer hotel accommodations as well as various nightlife options. Cheaper still would be a night in the Holiday Inn Express. Dealing in no frills family accommodation, this international chain offers you clean, comfortable rooms at a friendly price.

The Malone Road area is home to prestigious guesthouses. The cream of these seems to be the Old Rectory, where guests are served hot Irish whiskey every evening and where you'll be offered a range of about ten gourmet breakfasts in the morning, including organic fruit and venison sausages. The price weighs in at about the same as a two-star hotel, but you'll be treated considerable better in this friendly Victorian home. During summer months, both Queen's University and Stranmillis College open up their halls of residence to roving guests. These are economical options, but unsuitable if you're looking for a double bed to share with your loved one.

There are a number of cheap hostels around the university, and Arnie's Backpackers just about takes the cake for the cheapest bed in the area: £7 and you're housed for the night.

The Suburbs

The most prestigious hotel in Belfast suburbia is the Culloden, a five-star turreted castle situated on the main Belfast-Bangor road. Before the arrival of the Hilton, this was Belfast's only five-star establishment, and the Culloden still has the charm of the personalized local touch that chain hotels lack. Be virtuous, and exercise in their state-of-the-art fitness suite, and then undo all your hard work in one of their acclaimed restaurants.

Another hotel of note is the Stormont. This hotel is popular with the journalist fraternity, who have crammed into it on the various occasions when the newly-devolved Northern Irish government, which is seated in Stormont Castle just opposite the hotel, has fallen into crisis.

Bed and breakfasts fill the Belfast suburbs. West Belfast also has its own tourist-board approved bed and breakfast, Ceann Dubhrann. Expect to pay between 18-26 pounds for a single night's stay per person in any of these establishments. Whatever else may be on the breakfast menu, a hearty Ulster fry is common to them all.

Further Afield

The Dunadry Hotel, set in the countryside of Co. Antrim close to Belfast International Airport, dates back hundreds of years, and many of the rooms have their original solid oak beams. There's a fully equipped fitness suite and a fine contemporary restaurant (where you'll pay approximately £18 for a main course). Though only graced with a four-star rating, the Dunadry is an obvious rival to the Culloden.

If you're a golfing enthusiast, arrange a weekend at the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel near Bangor, where all guests get priority booking on the acclaimed Blackwood Golf Course. The hotel is set within extensive acreage, encompassing both landscaped gardens and open countryside. The Clandeboye Lodge Hotel also features a fine restaurant on its premises. There are of course, lots of guesthouses and bed and breakfast establishments scattered liberally throughout the Northern Ireland countryside, but one of the best ways to see the most remote and most beautiful areas is to hire a cottage. This also works out to be an inexpensive option if you're travelling as a group. Many of the cottages, such as the North Irish Lodge near Islandmagee, though thatched and full of old world Irish charm, are fully fitted with modern conveniences.

Rathlin Island is possibly as remote as Northern Ireland gets, and a trip here is well recommended in June: Rathlin is home to the largest group of seabird colonies in the British Isles and June is when you can see the birds nesting at close range. The Manor House Guesthouse on Rathlin, run by the National Trust, is a comfortable guesthouse in which you'll pay 42 pounds for a double room, so if getting away from it all is what you've traveled to Northern Ireland for, make this your call.

Until very recently, the city of Belfast has only evoked images of guns, bombs and misery. Those of us who have lived through the "Troubles" know that the city's charm has often been overlooked by this dominance of gloomy news, while visitors who braved this corner of the country were always surprised at how much there was to see and do. Now, of course, we're in different times and tourists flock to discover Belfast for themselves. Belfast has even been termed "Europe's friendliest regional capital", at once provincial and outward looking. It now offers a sumptuous range of dining and drinking experiences, excellent accommodation and every kind of entertainment possible.

Albert Clock

You can easily see the city center on foot and in a day. Kick off your morning at the City Hall, in the heart of the city center. This opulent Victorian pile was built in the last days of the 19th century as a symbol of the city's industrial might, and it remains Belfast's most recognizable landmark. The compact city center surrounds the City Hall. One of the curious side-effects of the Troubles was that the center of Belfast—gated and barred to all traffic for fear of bombs—became by accident a most attractive pedestrian zone, and it remains so today.

The center of Belfast is a hotchpotch of Victorian architecture—the best examples are the carefully preserved facades of the (now sadly defunct) department stores of the city, and the leaning Albert Clock. The gleaming Castlecourt shopping complex is the most potent symbol of the city's new prosperity.

City Hall

The main cultural institutions are housed in the heart of the city and can easily be taken in during a morning's stroll. From the City Hall, stroll past the Royal Courts of Justice down to the waterfront. Enormous redevelopments are taking place here, from new apartments to a new Hilton Hotel. The pride of the redevelopment goes to the Waterfront Hall, a great circular glass and limestone edifice and home to one of the best auditoriums in the British Isles. This is a most attractive place to stop for a peek about and a coffee.

Golden Mile

A few minutes walk away lies the so-called Golden Mile, stretching from the city center to Queen's University and home to Belfast's best nightlife. The Europa Hotel lies on the Mile and is famed as the most-bombed hotel in Europe, but the greatest attractions are the Opera House—19th-century, domed and vaguely mosque-like—and the ornate and lavish Crown Liquor Saloon. Some of the city's best concerts and opera are performed in the one, and the most serious drinking goes on in the other! The Crown is an excellent stop for lunch, and will give you the opportunity to discover the marvelous interior of the bar, which is owned by the National Trust.

Queen's University

The handsome university area is now just a few minutes' walk away. Queen's University lies in leafy south Belfast and the main building is constructed in warm red-brick, around a quiet and very fine quadrangle. The college was founded in the middle of the 19th century and is home to the Belfast Festival, the second-largest arts jamboree in the British Isles. Close to the university stands the Ulster Museum, which holds a fine and extensive collection of art, and the pretty Botanic Gardens. If it's raining, press on at this point to Stranmillis Village which is full of shops and cafes; but if it's not, then linger in the Gardens and take a moment to admire the impressive Palm House, sister to the great glasshouses at Kew.

Belfast Castle

One of the best ways for the visitor to catch all that the city has to offer is to try a tour. Here are some of the tours currently on offer that aim to capture those aspects of the city worth taking home with you. Politics, of course, is with us still, and if you're interested in seeing the trouble spots of both Protestant and Catholic West Belfast, try a Black Taxi Tour. The murals you'll see painstakingly painted on gable ends are a unique expression of communities in crisis, and it's fascinating to compare the Loyalist Shankhill Road murals with the Republican Falls Road ones—same medium, but very different messages. The Black Taxi Tour will also show you the Peace Line, designed to keep two communities apart, as well as taking you round some of the most famous building in the city center. Intimate and informative, it's a great way to see for yourself the issues and the energies that have shaped the conflict in Belfast since 1969.

If you want to see the city from the vantage point of a luxury bus, the Belfast City Tour run by Citybus will bring you to every major attraction in the greater Belfast area in the space of an afternoon. The tour has been thoroughly thought out, with stops for refreshments included in the price. You'll see the shipyard Harland & Wolff, where you can stand in the shadow of the two largest cranes in the world, Samson and Goliath. (Belfast, we say, builds Big, take for example The Titanic!) The elegant Parliament buildings at Stormont are on the agenda, and you also get taken up to the quiet, wooded slopes of the Cave Hill to Belfast Castle, stately home of the Chichester family who owned practically all of North Belfast. This is the tour of Belfast as the regional capital of Northern Ireland, and you'll see all the state institutions you would expect of a capital in all their pomp and architectural splendor.

Lagan

Belfast developed as a city around its waterway, the Lagan, and there's a great Lagan Cruise running from the re-vamped, swish Waterfront docklands area up to Stranmillis Weir by Queen's University. There's something very calming about boats and water, and this tour is a great way to learn and relax at the same time. You'll see very different faces of Belfast again, from the yuppie filled expensive new business developments, to the old cottages of Ulster on the banks higher up the river. Your tour guide is friendly and infectiously enthusiastic, and you'll be guided slowly up river in a ship called The James Joyce. What more could you want?

And of course no trip to Belfast would be complete without visiting that worldwide famous institution, the Irish Pub, the very place to dive straight into the proverbial heart of the Irish Welcome. There's a Historical Pub Tour of the city that has already done all the hard work for you—picked out the brightest, best and liveliest of Belfast's bars and strung them together into the most enjoyable tour around. Everything you could want is here, Irish music, endless craic, a chance to get off your feet at regular intervals and of course the inviting prospect of imbibing the local poison. If this tour drags on for longer than it's supposed too, don't blame the organizers.