I mentioned in Thursday’s post that my wife and I headed out after lunch (and the rain stopped) to explore more of Belfast on foot. One of the places we visited was Victoria Square. Victoria Square is a roofed outdoor mall, if that makes any sense. Traveling down the road (foot traffic only) you walk underneath a roof and you’re inside the mall, though you are still outside! The individual shops are separately enclosed, and since it was rather cool outside, we gladly stepped in some of them to warm up occasionally. The square is dominated by a glass dome that includes an observation platform which one can see most of the city.

Here is a picture from one of the third floor pathways, showing one of the mall entrances. You can see that “inside” and “outside” are merged quite successfully.

We stopped at a small shop called the Cookie Box and got some hot drinks (hot chocolate for me and tea for my wife) and some delicious cookies! We carried them into the mall and sat on a bench to enjoy them. While there we saw the characters shown in the Scavenger Hunt under the Traditional Dress heading. We also headed up to the observation platform to see the city from above. Beautiful! (Unfortunately none of those photos really turned out.)