Lights, Camera, Belfast

Drop your bags at your hotel in the City Centre — the compact core puts everything within walking distance for the two days ahead.

Start where civic Belfast announces itself most forcefully. The Portland stone dome and Baroque façade of City Hall dominate Donegall Square with an authority that production designers can only dream of replicating on a set. Walk the grounds and take in the scale before the day properly begins.

Duck into Pottinger's Entry, one of Belfast's oldest covered alleyways, to find the Morning Star. This City Centre bar and restaurant has been pulling pints and serving hearty food since the 1800s — a proper Belfast lunch stop with real character.

A short walk north brings you to the Cathedral Quarter's anchor point. St Anne's — known locally as the Black Santa cathedral — took over a century to complete, and its mosaic-covered interior and striking spire of hope reward unhurried exploration. The area around it is dense with the kind of atmospheric laneways that make cinematographers reach for their lenses.

Continue into the Cathedral Quarter to the Metropolitan Arts Centre. The MAC's contemporary red-brick and glass presence is a counterpoint to the Victorian stone all around it — check what's showing in the galleries before moving on toward the waterfront.

Head east along the River Lagan to the Titanic Quarter — the former shipyard that defined Belfast's industrial identity and whose vast, rusting scale has made it irresistible to filmmakers seeking something authentically monumental. W5's interactive science centre sits at the water's edge; even if you skip inside, the panorama of slipways, cranes, and the Titanic Belfast building behind it is an architectural spectacle on its own terms.

Wind back into the City Centre for the evening at The Northern Whig, housed in a grand former newspaper building. The soaring ceilings, stone floors, and three enormous Soviet-era statues create a backdrop that feels like a period film set — only the drinks are very much present-day Belfast.

Round out the evening at KUBO, the City Centre's answer to precise, flavour-forward cooking. A fitting dinner after a day spent in some of Belfast's most visually striking spaces.

Begin day two on the Falls Road, one of the most painted streets in the world. The vast political murals here form a living archive of Belfast's turbulent recent history — large-scale, unflinching imagery on gable walls that the city's past demanded be made permanent. Take your time reading the walls before moving east.

Cross through the Peace Gates to Shankill Road, where an equally powerful tradition of mural painting tells a parallel story. Seen together, the two roads give a visceral, unmediated sense of the divisions that shaped modern Belfast — and the slow, ongoing work of navigating them.

A short walk from the Falls brings you to St Peter's Cathedral, whose twin Gothic spires dominate the west Belfast skyline. The interior is calm and richly decorated — a quiet counterweight to the charged atmosphere of the streets outside.

Head back into the City Centre for lunch at Little Wing, Belfast's beloved pizzeria. Relaxed, reliably good, and the right kind of uncomplicated after a thought-heavy morning.

Take a short bus or taxi south to the University Quarter. The Ulster Museum holds everything from Egyptian mummies to the Spanish Armada treasure recovered from the Northern Irish coast — a collection as dramatically eclectic as the city itself. Afterwards, wander next door.

The Palm House is one of the earliest surviving examples of a curvilinear cast-iron glasshouse in the world — its domed wings rising from the gardens like something from a Victorian fantasy. Step inside for the warmth and the extraordinary tropical planting; it's an unexpectedly dramatic close to an afternoon.

End the trip at White's Tavern, one of Belfast's oldest hostelries, tucked down Winecellar Entry in the City Centre. Low ceilings, open fires, and a genuine sense of accumulated time — the perfect place to sit with a final drink and let the city settle in.