Belfast, brunch and botanical gardens

Hey everyone! I feel like I haven’t had a casual ‘chatty’ post in ages, and I really miss doing them! The truth is I haven’t been doing much that would be classified as worthy of a post as my life has been consumed with GCSEs (and it’s about to get worse…). However, luckily we got a little half-term break: sort of the calm before the storm, if you will – and I thought I would share with you the nice day I had with one of my friends during the week.

We started off the day with some brunch in Maggie May’s (if you’re ever in Belfast/Botanic area I highly recommend this place!)

We demolished our pancakes and french toast before I remembered to get a photo, but take my word that they were delicious. I did get a couple of photos of my cappuccino though, which was also enjoyable.

After that, we walked across to the botanical gardens, one of our favourite (and free) places to visit.

It was a beautiful but cold day: the sun was shining but the nippy wind outside was eradicated once we stepped foot inside the warm botanical zone (is that what it’s called?!)

I love how the building is all made of glass; it really is stunning on days like this (unlike today where the sky is sobbing).

There were so many pretty flowers and plants – I’m not an expert on any names but these ones remind me of dainty snowflakes…

We were actually surprised at the amount of bright flowers which were already in bloom; this tropical coloured one makes me so excited for summer!

This flower has to be my favourite of the bunch – so pretty and elegant-looking!

I can’t forget to mention the cherry blossom. I actually have a similar tree in my front garden which is so nice to admire at this time of year.

This statue in the corner is on one hand a reflection of me at times, but on the other hand quite haunting. The person looks so sad among all of these beautiful flowers and plants and I just wonder, who put them there?

As you can see, there is so much to see here, and in the summer there will be some completely different plants which makes this place always a pleasure to visit.

On the way back, as we were strolling past the trees, we spotted a squirrel which was so cute! I managed to get close enough to get a photo, so I was quite proud of that moment!

Right beside the Botanical Gardens is the Ulster Museum, and as we hadn’t visited in a while, thought it would be fun to have a look around.

The feature of the ginormous hanging dragons is incredibly impressive and quite intimating – you’ll always find people snapping photos of the fire-breathing creatures if you visit.

The museum includes a prominent section on the History of Northern Ireland. If you know me you’ll know that I love history so I’m always intrigued by everything artifactual, informative and preserved. To be honest, our history can be seen as a little scary, but it’s interesting all the same.

When I was younger, I used to visit this museum all the time with my cousins, and was always drawn to the sparkly rocks section – which is surprising since I am not a fan of chemistry or geography…

It seems that today I still admire the rocks, particularly this gorgeous blue and purple one that looks like the galaxy.

We also spent quite a bit of time perusing the art galleries; I was particularly drawn to this work by John Latham. I’m a fan of English or anything to do with reading and writing – apparently, Latham often burned and melted books for his artwork as he did here – it’s amazing, don’t you think?

In this piece, Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is melted into the canvas which is something that is on my reading list – it’s so long though, so it’s going to be a task and a half.

Finally, on this day the best GCSE an A-Level art was on display, so we looked around there and discovered a couple of people from our school’s art was on display. This dress had to be my favourite, it looked gorgeous!

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After that we just walked into town for a bit and I got a top for a neon party I’m going to at the weekend before heading home.

Overall this was such a nice day; I honestly love chilled ones like these!

Over the next while GCSEs are going to be taking over as I said before, so I can’t promise loads of posts on exact days, but I’ll try my best to get content planned and scheduled as much as possible!

What’s your favourite thing to do on chilled days out? Let me know!

CoffeeeAndCream