Belfast: from the Titanic to the peace wall

The city where the Titanic was built, Belfast still bears on its walls the marks of Northern Irish conflict, now transformed into a memory route for visitors.

The centre, from the Titanic district to the Peace Wall murals, is easily explored on foot.

The Titanic Belfast, a museum with a metallic facade reminiscent of ship hulls, stands precisely in the shipyard where the ship was built and launched in 1911.

A short walk away, the political murals of Falls Road and Shankill Road tell decades of tensions between Catholic and Protestant communities during the so-called Troubles.

Continuing on, one observes the Peace Wall, a wall that still today separates some neighborhoods of the city, covered with messages of peace left by visitors from around the world.

In the evening, Belfast City Hall, in white marble and Renaissance style, closes the day at the center of the illuminated main square.

The Titanic was designed and built entirely in Belfast, but never sank there: the city takes pride in its shipbuilding mastery rather than the tragedy that occurred in the Atlantic.

Some gates of the Peace Wall are still locked every evening in certain neighborhoods, a remnant of tensions that, while reduced, have not entirely disappeared from the city's daily life.