Things to do in Belfast

Landmark · Queen's Island, across the Lagan from the city centre

A six-floor museum on the exact slipways where Titanic and Olympic were built, next to the surviving drawing offices, the Thompson Dry Dock and HMS Caroline, a First World War light cruiser.

Local tip: The slipways outside are free and, for a lot of people, better than the ticketed galleries — the outlines of both ships are marked at full size in the ground and the scale is the whole point. Belfast's relationship with Titanic is drier than the tourism suggests: the local line is that she was fine when she left here.

Nightlife · North of the city centre, around St Anne's Cathedral

Cobbled entries and Victorian warehouses between Donegall Street and Waring Street, full of bars with traditional music, the Duke of York in a back alley, and the MAC arts centre.

Local tip: Learn the word 'entry' — the narrow alleys off High Street are the oldest street pattern in Belfast and the best pubs are down them, not on the main road. The Duke of York's alley is the photographed one; Commercial Court and Hill Street are where people actually drink.

Nature · Queen's Quarter, beside Queen's University

A public park on the Lagan with a curvilinear cast-iron glasshouse of 1840 — among the earliest of its kind anywhere — and the free national museum of Northern Ireland at its edge.

Local tip: The Palm House predates Kew's and was built by Richard Turner, the Dublin ironfounder who went on to build Kew's; it is free and almost always quiet. The Ulster Museum is also free, and its Troubles gallery is the most honest, least sentimental public account of the conflict in the city.

Nature · North Belfast, above the Antrim Road

The basalt escarpment that closes the city to the north, with McArt's Fort on the summit, a Scottish-baronial castle on the slope below, and the whole of Belfast Lough laid out beneath.

Local tip: The profile from the city is said to have given Swift the idea of a sleeping giant for Gulliver's Travels, and locals call it Napoleon's Nose. It is a genuine hill walk, an hour up from the castle car park, and on a clear day you see Scotland. Belfast is ringed by hills on three sides and a lough on the fourth, which is why the weather changes so fast.

Food · May Street, behind the Waterfront Hall

The last surviving Victorian covered market in Belfast, built 1890–96, trading Friday to Sunday with fish, produce, hot food stalls and live music.

Local tip: Friday is the variety market and the one locals use; Saturday is food and craft; Sunday adds music and is the busiest. Go on Friday morning for the fish — Belfast's market is the only place in the city centre where the fish trade still visibly exists — and get a soda farl while you are there.

Culture · Ballynahatty, four miles south of the centre off the Milltown Road

A Neolithic henge nearly 200 metres across with a passage tomb at its centre, sitting in open fields above the Lagan valley, free and almost always empty.

Local tip: It is around 4,700 years old, older than the pyramids at Giza, twenty minutes from the City Hall, and most people who live in Belfast have never been. Combine it with the towpath: the Lagan Towpath runs unbroken from Stranmillis to Lisburn and is the best flat walk or cycle in the city.