I have visited Belfast a number of times but I have never had the opportunity to explore the city in detail until this weekend. When I booked a room in the Ibis Hotel I did not realize that because of the Royal Wedding Friday was a bank holiday in Northern Ireland. Fortunately this did not have much of a negative impact on my activities and, in fact, it might have been to my advantage because the streets were less crowded.

At first glance Belfast (city centre) appeared to me to be more prosperous than Dublin but this impression may have been due to the fact that civic buildings and facilities are better maintained. The buildings and structures of Belfast comprise many styles of architecture ranging from Edwardian through to state-of-the-art modern buildings like the Waterfront Hall. The city's beautiful Edwardian buildings are notable for their display of large numbers of sculptures. Many of Belfast's Victorian landmarks, including the main Lanyon Building at Queens University in 1849, were designed by Sir Charles Lanyon.

After two days I began to notice that all was not as it appeared - there were many empty buildings and failed businesses in or near the centre. The city appears to have a number of problems which could impact on the tourist industry, the major one being the amount of on-street consumption of alcohol and judging by the notices posted around the city and in railway stations the authorities are well aware of the issue. On-street smoking by staff outside business premises is unattractive (we do have this problem in Dublin but not to the same extent).