Belfast, a City That Doesn't Forget

Belfast got under my skin.

Zenaido Torres

It was a part of the United Kingdom I still hadn't explored, so I traveled there directly from London. Perhaps the first thing that struck me was the contrast. Belfast works, it's efficient, but it also felt quieter, as though history had taught it to be cautious and a little nostalgic.

I was also surprised to see Irish flags hanging outside some homes. It was one of the first signs of something I would encounter again and again as I explored the city: here, identity is still very much present in the streets.

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Belfast refuses to forget its history. Its industrial past, the growth that made it one of the most important cities of its time, but also the cruel and bloody divisions it endured.

Walking its streets means constantly coming face to face with that history.

You can have a great time in one of the many pubs in the Cathedral Quarter and, somehow, that sense of nostalgia still seems to linger in the air. For what was, for what might have been, and for everything the city had to leave behind in order to move forward.

And I don't know. Don't we do something similar when we have to let go of something so we can keep moving?

Outside the city, the Giant's Causeway was waiting for me. Cold air hitting my face, clearing my thoughts, and in front of me, more than forty thousand basalt columns forming one of those natural spectacles that hardly seem possible.

And of course, as so often happens when I travel, I ended up thinking about Mexico.

This time, about the basaltic prisms in Huasca de Campo, Hidalgo.

Walking across the columns forced me to look down so I wouldn't trip, then lift my head again to take in the landscape in front of me. The wind was blowing so hard that at times I had to slow down as it pushed against me.

Back in Belfast, I walked along the Peace Walls and made my way to the Bobby Sands mural.

The barriers that still separate some historically Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, the political murals, and the stories of persecution, resistance, and violence make it difficult to walk through this part of Belfast as just another tourist.

At times, I felt a little like an intruder as I walked through those neighborhoods. I looked at the houses, the streets, the everyday life continuing around those walls, and wondered about the stories of the people who live there. What they remember. What they would rather forget. And what they hope for.

I ended my stay with a visit to the Titanic Museum.

I followed the story of its construction, saw how it was fitted out, and tried to imagine what it must have felt like to be about to board that ship. Then I stood by the harbor where it was built before it began its journey.

We know the story.

We know how it ends.

Even so, seeing the names and stories of those who lost their lives moved me. But something hit me even harder: the children and the pets who were on board.

I left the museum overwhelmed.

And with a story turning over in my head.

It had been there for some time, still incomplete, waiting for something I didn't yet know it needed. In Belfast, it began to take shape.

Maybe one day it will see the light.

After five days, I said goodbye to the city and boarded the bus that would take me to Dublin. Barely a couple of hours separated one city from the other.

And as I made my way toward Ireland, I was listening to U2. No line could have described that short stretch between two cities, between two countries, any better:

Far away, so close.