Category — Ireland

The continent of Europe is one big playground when it comes to festivals and events. No matter the time of year, there is certain to be something fun and entertaining on, whether it’s a music festival or a festival steeped in tradition.

Carnevale

Based in Venice, Italy – Carnevale is a wondrous and decadent renaissance festival. With amazing costumes and set against Italy’s picturesque water city of Venice, Carnevale is not to be missed!

St. Patrick’s Day

Get your green on for St. Patty’s day in Dublin, Ireland. With a massive parade, a treasure hunt that haves people ferreting all around the city and the ‘Skyfest’ (an enormous fireworks display) – St. Patrick’s Day is a week of ‘craic’ where it will be hard not to have a great time.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival

What to say about the Fringe festival? Well it has got to be the largest arts related festival on earth, with thousands of performances every year in 300 venues all around Edinburgh. It runs for three weeks in August, and quality of the comedy and drama and everything in between seems to get better every year.

Notting Hill Carnival

This London based festival will often get over half a million spectators, with crazy floats and costumed dancers – it’s a lot of fun. The festival is on the last weekend of August.

Oktoberfest

It may well be steeped in history, but we all know Oktoberfest is all about one thing, the beer! With huge tents full of the delicious and frothy stuff – you’ll mingle with a lot of Australians, Italians and Germans too of course. It’s one of those festivals you really need to go to at least once, just to experience it. Occurs every year – with the majority of the event actually occurring in September and running into earlier October.

So there you have it, five fantastic festivals you should surely check out next time you’re traveling or backpacking through Europe.

This was a guest post from Tom at http://www.activebackpacker.com – he loves writing about places, tips and tricks all about backpacking.

There are many people who are curious on where Belfast is located. Belfast is located is the capital of a city in North Ireland. This is located in United Kingdom and it is known to be one of the famous cities in UK. The city of Belfast has only a minimum number of populations, not too crowded place. There are estimated 267,500 populations in the city of Belfast.

This famous city has two airports on it and so people find it very convenient in getting into this place. You can get direct flights to George Best Belfast City Airport or Belfast International Airport, whichever is most convenient for you. It really depends as to where you are coming from.

Where to Stay:
There are several places for weekend breaks in Northern Ireland and you will find it amazing that it is very easy to book a room there. To make your travel unique from the others, it is best that you stay in one place for one night and then transfer to another hotel the other night. This way, you will learn what offers the best services and so you can also give recommendations to friends who wanted to travel to this place one day. It is also going to be unique when you get to know at least 5 locals in one day so you will get idea on what their culture is in this place.

We all know that we have different cultures from one country to the other. It is best that we learn what their culture is so we can relate to them and gets as many acquaintances as you have thought. If you are there for business, ask some locals where most businessmen stay so you can also go and meet some people from there. You might be able to close a deal while you are on a vacation. Isn’t that the best travel experience? Earning while having vacation is fun and challenging. If you know what to do and where to go, it would not be impossible for you to meet and greet some people from big companies.

Where to Dine:
If you are starving and you want to eat some good food, there are a lot of good restaurants in Belfast. One can never say what restaurant exactly serves the best food because all of them do. There are restaurants that are just in the U.S. and there are some that cooks what the locals usually eat.

The east side of Belfast is the largest of the four sections of the city and is mainly a residential area. While visiting this area of Belfast you can make a stop at the Stormont Parliament Buildings which now houses the recently reinstated Northern Ireland Assembly. Inside the building you will find marble interiors. There may be guided tours, but you need to phone in advance to make sure. It is recommended that you take the mile long road to get to the main parliament building.

You can also visit the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, which is about eight miles from Belfast City Centre. You can get here by train and is one of Ireland’s best tourist attractions. Plan to spend the day because it has two sheds that are full of old buses and steam locomotives from Northern Ireland’s past. At the Folk Museum you can see a re-creation of an old Irish town.

On the west side of Belfast you visit the world renowned Political Murals throughout Shankill Road and Falls Road. You can also visit one of the two big cemeteries of West Belfast called the Milltown Cemetery, which is the resting place for many of the Republican paramilitary members. For the IRA members that were killed during the troubled times in Northern Ireland there is a memorial garden. Also laid to rest in this memorial garden are those that took part in the Hunger Strike in 1988. This particular cemetery is also the site of the notorious killings of three mourners during an IRA funeral in 1988.

There are also two parks that you can visit. Falls Park is a huge open area that is populated by gardens, Gaelic Football, Hurling pitches, and a huge cemetery. It is a nice place to visit sunny day. The other park is Casement Park, which is the stadium of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The two sports played there are the Hurling pitches and Gaelic Football, which provide a great experience for tourists. You can check the newspaper to see if there are going to be any games played during your visit.

You can also pay a visit to O’Neils Sportswear, which is the biggest retailer and manufacturer of Gaelic Sports memorabilia and equipment. Items from O’Neils Sportswear would make a great individual souvenir.

These are some of the many places that you can visit on your trip to Belfast Ireland so make sure that you bring your walking shoes and enjoy yourself. Check into a B and B Belfast and take lots of pictures too.