Visiting Northern Ireland - Slow Day in Belfast

Early last week, we had a last minute decision to go and spend a day in Belfast at the weekend. We also had a long due catch up with a lovely friend there since we had not seen her for a year.

We booked train tickets, packed our new little camera (I recently got an Olympus E-PL8 that we can bring on shorter trip when we are limited on luggage, aka not having to drag my enormous Canon SLR everywhere we go), our Kindle tablets, an umbrella and off we went!

For this day in Belfast, the train was a nicer option as we could take the time to catch up on reading on the way there and back, and also check out the landscape at a slower pace (it was particularly beautiful at sunset).

The last time we had visited Belfast, we had gone by car and had taken a trip up North for some sightseeing.

This was not a trip with sightseeing on the list this time but we did walk through St George Market and stopped in City Hall briefly before meeting our friend and her little baby for lunch. We had a few things to eat at Yugo Belfast, among which a delicious son in law egg and BBQ pork bao bun (I found a lot of the food we ordered overly salty but maybe it was specific to that lunch or dishes...).

Lunch turned into 'let's go have coffee and cake somewhere!'. After a bit of walking, we got to Established Coffee and set up there to continue our chat. I was not even hungry anymore but I could not resist a slice of the brownie with speculoos paste and white chocolate. The flat white accompanying it was perfect.

And then, we walked a bit more and headed to Ox Cave for a glass of wine and a few bites before we had to catch our train. We shared a few things such as green olives, bread and tapenade, pickled Irish herring, Connemara pork with cornichons and some delicious cheeses. This beautiful wine bar was the food (and wine of course!) highlight of the day. A stop back there and lunch or dinner at Ox is high on our list for a next visit to Belfast.

After a day of mostly eating, chatting and walks in between, we said our goodbyes and got our train back to Dublin.

This slow day in Belfast was just what I needed after a few busy weeks and the ones coming up (until the next weekend away and a holiday I am very excited about!).

What do you do on a slow day? Go away somewhere and take it easy or stay home and have a nice day just for yourself?