Belfast

This light infantry regiment was formed in 1881 and served in the Boer War, World War I and II, and in Korea. The museum is part of the Royal Irish Regimental Museums group.

Self-guided tour of this grim old prison, opened in 1846 with a typical Victorian hall design, and in use until 1996.

Museum in a former mill depicting the history of Republicanism in Belfast. Eileen Hickey was a Provisional IRA organiser within Armagh prison and amassed a great collection of artifacts and memorabilia relating to her side of the conflict. This is the half-history where 1200 Catholic civilians died in Belfast during the Troubles. You have to cross the city to the Orange Heritage Centre for the half-history where 600 Protestant civilians died - and both are correct.

The hub of Irish language activities in Belfast. It's a cultural centre with visitor information, art, trad music, a cafe and a bookshop. They put on regular Irish language classes, from beginners to advanced.

Opened in 1869, the cemetery is full of Victorian funerary statuary, with separate areas for Catholics and Protestants, plus Commonwealth war graves. There's a large Jewish section: this community fled Russia and Poland in the 19th century and set up in the Irish linen trade. Famous members (though buried elsewhere) included Otto Jaffe (twice Lord Mayor of Belfast), Chaim Herzog (6th President of Israel), and Gustav Wolff (co-founder of Harland and Wolff; his family had converted to be Protestant).

Best known for its republican burials, but its range is far broader. It too opened in 1869 to receive the city's growing Catholic population, and its "poor grounds" hold some 80,000, many of them casualties of the 1919 flu pandemic. There is also a mass grave for casualties of the 1941 Blitz, Commonwealth war graves, and a Priests Row of leading RC clerics. The Republican plot, beneath the Irish tricolour, holds paramilitaries and other activists killed in conflict or dying in jail (including the 1981 hunger strikers), and there's a memorial garden. Other republicans lie in their separate plots around the graveyard. But not necessarily "rest in peace": in March 1988 at the funeral of those shot dead in their attempted bomb attack on Gibraltar, a loyalist attacked the mourners with hand grenades and pistol fire. Three mourners were killed and 60 were injured.

These are two massive gantry cranes near the entrance to the Titanic Quarter. Goliath is the first you encounter, built in 1969 and 96 m (315 ft) tall; Samson built in 1974 is 106 m (348 ft) tall. They stand over the Harland & Wolff dry dock and each has a load capacity of 840 tonnes. They're painted yellow and have become an iconic part of the Belfast sky-line. They've been kept in working order even though large-scale shipbuilding and associated heavy lifting has ended on site, but there are no tours up into their structure. Harland & Wolff went bust in 2019 and are now owned by Navantia. Both cranes are scheduled as Historic Monuments.

For a century this was the "T-word" in Belfast, even more than the Troubles, an unwelcome reminder of a catastrophe reflecting badly on the city. This exhibition, opened in 2012 in a striking modern building, has revitalised a whole city quarter and rescued RMS Titanic as a source of local pride, for its construction and its crew. You progress through the metal-bashing boomtown of Victorian and Edwardian Belfast, through the design, construction by Harland & Wolff, fitting out and test sailings, to events of the first and final voyage. Titanic left Southampton on 10 April 1912, picked up passengers by tender from Cherbourg and Cork, and sailed out into the Atlantic. She left behind a confident Britain that daily expected news of Captain Scott's triumphant return from the South Pole. The museum shows excerpts from films about her sinking, gashed by an iceberg that calved from a Greenland glacier about the same day the ship was launched. One myth that is nixed is the 1997 James Cameron film treatment, where patrician British officers near-as-dammit hold the Irish 3rd-class passengers' heads underwater while the gilded rich are helped to safety and the band plays on. In truth one group had even worse survival than 3rd class, and that was the ship's crew, many of them Irish. The final part of the exhibition has submersible images of the wreck, which lies in two pieces 12,500 ft / 3800 m deep off Newfoundland.

Titanic and her sister-ship Olympic were too big to dock in Cherbourg, so in 1911 two tenders were built to transfer passengers, baggage and mail. SS Nomadic was the more luxurious and took first and second-class passengers, while SS Traffic took third class. During World War I they served as auxiliary military vessels then resumed as tenders for Olympic, until 1934 when Cherbourg harbour was enlarged. They saw further military service in World War II, after which the slow, accident-prone Traffic was scrapped. Nomadic was reprieved because bombed-out Cherbourg was again unable to receive large liners, so she tendered to the likes of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth before retiring in 1968. After a spell in Paris as a floating restaurant she looked destined for scrap, but a charitable trust brought her to Belfast for restoration.

Royal Navy light cruiser built in 1914 and engaged in the Battle of Jutland. After the war Caroline had a spell in the Indian Ocean then was mothballed until 1924, when she came to Belfast as a training ship and navy headquarters.

Impressive dry dock where the ship was launched, and the pump house which drained and flooded the dock. The pump house has been converted into a whiskey distillery which offers regular tours and tastings.

Interactive science museum aimed at younger children. Booking essential.

These massive buildings, built in neo-Georgian style in 1926, are the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Tours are available W-F noon and 2PM, and last 45 minutes, free but book online in advance. The buildings stand on the wooded Stormont Estate, you approach along the long avenue from Newtownards Road and Massey Ave. There's a nearby cluster of modern government office buildings, plus the 19th-century baronial Stormont Castle, only open on special occasions.

Oranges don't grow in Ulster, so how come so many institutions and events sound like a Spanish street fiesta? Well, in 35 BC Roman army vets founded Arausio in the south of France, named for a Celtic water god, which grew into the city of Orange and became conflated with the name of the fruit. This museum picks up the story from the 17th century, when William Prince of Orange ousted the Catholic king of the British Isles and began Protestant rule. The Orange Order was founded in the strife that followed, and which has continued on and off for over 300 years.

Baronial pile built on Cave Hill for the Shaftesbury family in the 1860s. It's nowadays an event space for weddings and the like, plus a posh cafe, assistance dogs only. You might be able to peek in at some of the grand rooms, but mostly you come for the view over the city.

Extensive zoo on the north slopes of Cave Hill, daily talks and feeding sessions, free parking.

Large events venue on the west bank of the river, see website for upcoming shows.

This complex contains a 12-screen cinema, the multi-use SSE Arena, conference facilities, W5 science museum (see above) and restaurants and bars.

Opened in 1895, this is a splendid example of Victorian Oriental architecture, refurbished in 2020. It has a full programme of shows including panto. Oh no it doesn't! Oh yes it does!

The Lyric has a main theatre seating 400 and the Naughton Studio seating around 150.

The MAC opened in 2012 and is a centre for art, theatre and dance.

Belfast's art house and repertory cinema, and the main venue for the Belfast Film Festival.