Ireland day 0790. Monday 27 November 2023- Belfast Conference 1

Today’s summary	Had some work Teams video calls to make from the flat in the first part of the day then drove up to Belfast for a conference in the evening.   Staying at the Titanic Hotel and went out for dinner at Coppi Italian restaurant.  Val working at the museum in the afternoon
Today’s weather	Quite cool but mostly dry and bright.   Light northerly wind.  Appx 8c
Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)			Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

(Summary blog only.   Last full blog was Day 0368).

Well – this is something I haven’t done for a long time – namely gone on a business trip to attend a conference in a foreign country.   Albeit that the foreign country is actually Northern Ireland, and Belfast where the meeting is being held, is less than two hours drive from Malahide.

But anyway – before I could set off, I had a couple of business meetings to attend to first – but now that I am proficient with Teams, I could do them from anywhere.   So I dialled in from the flat, which saved the hassle and time of driving over to the office.

Val was working at the museum again today, but she had the morning off.   So once I had finished my video calls, we had a quick beans-on-toast lunch together then she headed off to the Casino and I headed up the road to Belfast.

The conference is being held in the Titanic Centre – host of the exhibition dedicated to the eponymous ship – and which we visited almost exactly two years ago.   And tonight I’m staying in the Titanic Hotel, which is conveniently located right next door and which is quite deluxe.

This evening, a group of eight of us from the office, who are all attending the conference, got a taxi over to St Anne’s Square, to have dinner at the “Coppi” Italian restaurant.   A very sociable evening all round and just the drive over in the taxi showed me a side of Belfast that I’d never seen before.   Smart, upmarket, and clearly benefiting from a lot of recent investment.   Such a difference from when I was first here on business – which was back in the late 1980s – when there was barbed wire everywhere, gun-turrets seemingly on every street corner, and a distinctly threatening atmosphere.   Val and I will definitely have to pay a return visit at a future date, to have a much better look around.

Anyway, I need to retire now as I have a long day conference-ing in store tomorrow!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

A sign of the times – at a service station just north of the border in Co. Down	In Titanic Square – the conference is in the Titanic building itself, and I’m staying in the Titanic hotel, which is just opposite.
St Anne’s Square, where we went for dinner this evening.   What a transformation from when I first came to Belfast in the 1980s, when there were gun turrets on every corner

(No map today)

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