and these things were great too..

I took a walk with our toddler to try and get him to have a little sleep and the street was so noisy.I decided to duck into the Queens University campus and it really is magnificent. This was not on my list of things to visit but I'm glad I did.

Inside the university complex there is a magnificent square with all kinds of beautiful buildings to behold. There's also an ugly administration building but I think there must be some kind of law that requires each university's admin building to be gack. This one sure was.

I also chanced upon the Botanic Gardens on the way back to the hotel and these too are well worth a look. There is a huge glasshouse in the middle of the gardens but I didn't go in. Despite the fact that the gardens are right next to what is a really busy road out of the city, once you're inside the gardens you don't notice the noise at all. That makes this place a real little oasis of calm in a city with lots of traffic noise.

At the edge of the park there is the Ulster Museum though it was closing as I was walking around so I never got to see inside. I hear it's pretty good and there's no admission charge which is good news for parents of children who might go in and decide immediately that everything inside is boring. That's kids for you.

At the edge of the gardens there is a big statute of Lord Kelvin, thrilling for all the Physicists out there.

We were going to check out some of these virtual-reality play centres for kids, you know the places where you go into some huge big indoor "discovery area" where kids can learn about science and nature. Instead we accidentally found a couple of great parks and this was definitely a better way to get some exercise and discover nature. Excellent.

Tomorrow: The side of Belfast that is strange.