A Titanic attraction

But Belfast have done it so wonderfully well with the Titanic Belfast museum, that I would recommend flying off from Cardiff to George Best airport in Northern Ireland's first city for the weekend to be able to take it all in.

The sinking of the RMS Titanic was a disaster that has managed to remain vivid in the public's imagination so much, that still 100 years on and a memento in the auction house salerooms still raise crazy prices.

So what is the connection between the Titanic and Belfast?

That's where it was built, is the short answer. And why have a museum celebrating one of the most celebrated maritime disasters?

Probably because it was not a subject that raised serious sectarian overtones; there was a lot of old redundant dockside space needing a theme for redevelopment to bring in jobs and push up prices of decorative miniscule apartments for people wanting to live decorative vibrant lives in former wastelands a la Canary Wharf, Bristol Docks, Cardiff Bay, etc, etc. But the point is, the Titanic Belfast is a titanic success.

We were in Belfast to see our daughter off on a two-week Tall Ships Race from Belfast to Norway. After much deliberation on whether we would be tempting the fates too much with a visit to the Titanic before she left, we decided to take on seafaring superstition and have a quick zip around the museum.

We were more than glad we threw superstition overboard, but a word of advice: the Titanic experience is not a quick zip.

It is a dramatic, enthralling, hi-tech, hands-on display of Belfast at the height of its glory as a linen and shipbuilding powerhouse of the British Empire, interwoven with tale of extreme hubris lanced by an iceberg, and the tragedy of the finest, fastest and most opulent unsinkable passenger liner, sinking.

And sinking fast, and with too few lifeboats, and the loss of two thirds of her passengers and crew on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Walking up from where the procession of Tall Ships from all continents were tethered in preparation for their race, the Titanic building dominated the skyline as only something six stories high with nothing in common with the surrounding architecture can. In fact it took the whole of the museum visit and a walk at dusk before I eventually got it - the whole building is designed to look like ships' prows proudly resting on a sea of concrete. It is an impressive and attractive building in the first place, but that realisation uplifted the already impressive experience we had had within the building.

The Titanic story is etched into the national psyche, and most of us know the outline of the story: the greatest ship ever built, hailed as unsinkable, hits an iceberg and sinks, with tragic loss of life, including the string quartet that went on playing until the icy waters took them into its fold. More lives might have been saved if a nearby ship had picked up the Mayday signal. More lives might have been saved if there had been enough lifeboats, and the lifeboats had been filled properly. The passenger list was full of the rich and powerful, and Leonardo and Kate rebooted interest with a smash hit in the cinemas. And then they found and raised the Titanic. Or was that just a book title that became a reality?

Anyway, back to the museum, and take the escalator to the top, because that is as good place to start. And the story starts in a booming, prosperous city, and the story of the linen capital of the Edwardian world, and how it dovetails with one of the world's biggest and best shipyards, that feeds the demand of a seafaring nation that is pretty proud to be ruling the waves.

Using large screens to visually convey what the looks and sounds of the time, with animated shadows giving a pleasing optical illusion of busy street scenes. The political situation is explained, with Home Rule and the Unionists causing troubles, without the violence of The Troubles of the 1970s that were chewing over the same gristle.

From the setting, the exhibition halls introduced the key figures in the building of the Titanic, including the White Star Line which commissioned the Titanic and her two sister ships that were going to be world beaters on build, on speed and on opulence.

From the optimism of the big ideas, to the stories of those who worked in the Harland & Wolf as riveters and craftsmen. To demonstrate the fantastical nature of the ship's construction, visitors clamber into fairground gondolas, and are whisked around a representation of the steel wall of the ship's hull lit by furnace lights and serenaded by the riveter's hammer.

On, and on along the journey from its launch, and into the fabric of the ship, and its ballroom - modelled on the Waldorf in London - and its cabins, and the send off from Southampton.

And then as the music of the story of the Titanic reaches a jubilant crescendo of achievement - it sinks...

Yes, we all know that bit, but have you ever tried to send out the morse code Mayday? Thought not. We did. And we were shocked at the short time it took for this magnificent ship took to sink, before it came to rest 12,500 ft beneath the icy waves.

It is the human stories that get you every time: the glaring inadequacy of lifeboats - presumably they would have been considered purely decoration on an unsinkable ship - and the unthinkable useless gestures, like the string quartet playing on until the bitter end. So many poignant little vignettes.

And then the recriminations and accusations afterwards, as to whose fault it was, and shouldn't the lookouts have been using binoculars to spot for icebergs, if the ship had been warned six times that they were on the Titanic's planned route?

And then, with your thoughts, you go down, down, to explore the ship on the sea bed, its discovery, and the artefacts taken from the wreck.

Take my advice, when you take in this experience, leave enough time. It is a good day's worth, and by leaving ourselves only the morning, with an immovable time of getting two young shipmates onto their ship, meant that experience was overshadowed by a ticking clock, as we got absorbed in the imaginatively presented history and drama of the Titanic and the city and shipyard that gave birth to it.

Flights out of Cardiff Airport to Belfast City Airport operate daily with Flybe.

For more information visit http://www.cardiff-airport.com/destinations/belfast/