Yesterday was a dreadful day and what high hopes I started out with...actually, that is a fib. I woke up feeling dreadful, the weather was dull and I believe the temperature was only 4 degrees but I decided to catch the train into Belfast. The train was packed, mostly with tourists heading into town for the Titanic festivities (I assume). We visited the Palm House, but sadly the rest of the gardens are cordoned off for maintenance, including the beautiful bandstand. When I see the bandstand I always think of my great grandparents' who lived on the edge of Botanic Park. As you can see from my photographs the Palm House, built in the 1800s, is home to many strange and wonderful plants. We had hoped to see the Banana tree but that is in the Tropical Ravine, which is also closed for maintenance. But when it is bitter cold, windy and drizzly in Belfast the last thing I want to do is walk around. Why does it always rain when I go there?
We stopped off at the Ulster Museum, which is in Botanic Gardens, mainly to heat up. I also used it as an excuse to visit the beautiful John Lavery gallery "A Gift To The City" and I fell in love with two of his paintings, luckily for me they had lovely prints in the gift shop and now I am on the prowl for gaudy gilded picture frames.
I snapped photos of some exhibitions, we didn't see all of the museum. Overall the highlight of my day was visiting the Ruby Murray historical plaque at the Ulster Hall and getting those prints...
My next post on the Giant's Causeway is much more promising!
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| The Palm House |
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| The Green Coat. This was my favourite, I bought the print. The woman is of Lavery's wife, Lady Hazel, aka the American actress, Hazel Martyn. |
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| Beautiful |
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| I loved this painting, sadly they didn't have a print. |
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| Mother & Child, John Lavery |
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