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Best Neighborhood/Area to Stay for 3 Nights in Belfast

Posted by on

Husband and I are in our early 30's, into food/drinking/history, etc...and are planning a trip between London/Belfast/Dublin in late May. We are starting in London then heading to Belfast for 3 nights before heading to Dublin for 4 nights. Looking for recommendations for best area to stay in that's a good central location to sight seeing and solid restaurants/pubs without having to use too much public transport. Ideally we'd like to be in walking distance but of course we know that may not be possible. This will be our first time in Ireland. We've primarily used AirBnB for international travel, but we know that may not always be best for certain cities/countries. We don't have a huge budget either, looking for under $200 US per night. We typically like to avoid super touristy stuff and prefer to try and get more of a local experience, but we know 3 days isn't a ton of time to really explore a whole lot.

Thoughts? :)

Thanks in advance!!

Posted by
1036 posts

Look into the Temple Bar area. It certainly fits your criterion of food / drinking / history. It tends to be one of the more expensive districts but there are good bargains. Its really the perfect place to stay: walking distance to both sides of the river and along the river to the Guinness brewery, near Trinity College and the Book of Kells for history, and only about 100 pubs within ten blocks.

Posted by
62 posts

That's okay, same question applies to Dublin, but I had heard about Temple Bar previously and concluded we would probably stay there for our Dublin portion of the trip. :)

We actually may only stay in Belfast for two nights...just trying to determine where we should stay there in relation to what is best to do/see as we don't know as much about Belfast.

Posted by
2822 posts

We stayed in an apartment in the Titanic Quarter on our last trip and the location was excellent. The Titanic Museum is close by, and it's a short, scenic walk to get to Victoria Square and the attractions in the city...which is quite compact and pedestrian friendly. It was also nice to retreat to the relative quiet of the Quarter once we were done for the day. We peeked in on this place while we were there and it looked very nice: https://www.premierinn.com/gb/en/hotels/northern-ireland/antrim/belfast/belfast-titanic-quarter.html?INNID=BELTIT&ARRdd=04&ARRmm=02&ARRyyyy=2018&NIGHTS=1&ROOMS=1&ADULT1=2&CHILD1=0&COT1=0&INTTYP1=DB&SID=4&ISH=true&BRAND=PI&CID=GHF_US_mapresults_desktop_BELTIT
Regarding the Temple Bar area in Dublin: while it's certainly in the center of things it's also quite noisy into the wee hours. Unless you're really into crowds and noise I'd suggest looking a bit further away. Dublin is quite walkable too. We always stay in or near the Ballsbridge area - about a 20 minute walk from St. Stephens Green and Grafton St.

Posted by
62 posts

Emma,
What would you recommend beyond Temple Bar since we're talking about Dublin in here too? :)
We just want to be in walking distance to some cool things and have a good central location without having to rely on transportation the whole time. We are not afraid to walk a lot, so we'd be willing to walk 20-30 min to places (or more depending), but wouldn't want to be that far away from everything obviously.

Posted by
3 posts

I know the post was about Belfast, but it seems to have gone in a Dublin direction. I, too, would avoid saying right in Temple Bar. Very close and convenient, just across the river, is a cool hotel called The Morrison. If that's a bit over budget, have a look at Staunton's on the Green (right on Stephen's Green), or one of the O'Callahan's (Mont Clare is right in the heart of things, Davenport nearby.)

Posted by
3 posts

Another place that would work (within 20 min walk) is a simple guesthouse (with good breakfast) I stayed in recently with my high school aged daughter: Morehampton Townhouse. In a very nice part of town, 15-20 min walk to main sights.

Posted by
8375 posts

We are staying at the Premier Inn /Titanic Quarter mentioned above this upcoming August. We've stayed in this chain of hotels before and found them to provide a good value. The location in the Titanic Quarter was close to our top priority locations and I found that there is a bus from the train station that stops right outside the front door of the hotel. Our cost will be 73 pounds/night.

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