Belfast packs a national museum, Ireland's photography gallery, a Victorian opera house and mile-long political murals into a walkable few square miles. Most of it is free, and almost none of it is behind glass.
Northern Ireland's largest museum, on the edge of Botanic Gardens: Armada gold salvaged from the Girona wreck, Takabuti the Egyptian mummy, and a top-floor art wing of Turner watercolours and contemporary Irish painting.
Queen's University's contemporary gallery sits on the first floor of Charles Lanyon's 1849 Tudor-revival quadrangle. Free rotating shows of emerging Irish artists, inside what is still the finest Victorian building in the city.
Ireland's dedicated photography gallery, in a converted Donegall Street warehouse since 1983. Two exhibition floors plus a community archive of roughly half a million negatives documenting ordinary life through the Troubles.
Hackett Hall McNamara's 2012 basalt-and-brick arts centre in St Anne's Square: three galleries stacked around a 60ft atrium, two theatres, and free contemporary exhibitions that stay open into the evening on show nights.
Frank Matcham's 1895 auditorium, reopened after a £12m restoration in 2021: gilded elephant heads flanking the boxes, a painted Indian-inspired ceiling, and a heritage exhibition covering 130 years of seasons and bomb damage.
The 1862 civic concert hall and home of the Ulster Orchestra, with its Mulholland Grand Organ and a room hung with Sir John Lavery's Belfast paintings. You can walk in off Bedford Street when nothing is being rigged.
Northern Ireland's only full-time producing theatre, rebuilt in 2011 in brick and iroko above the Lagan at Stranmillis. Liam Neeson started here in 1976 and remains a patron; matinees play Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.
A 100-capacity Hill Street room running spoken word, jazz, cabaret and experimental theatre as a non-profit since 2006. The Green Room bar next door opens from noon; most performances start at 20:00 for under £15.
Lanyon's 1845 prison held suffragettes, loyalist and republican prisoners and 17 executed men before closing in 1996. Guided tours take in the tunnel to the courthouse, C-wing and the condemned man's cell; museum since 2012.
A continuous run of large-scale political murals along Divis Street, repainted every few years by community artists: Palestinian and Basque solidarity panels, hunger-strike portraits, and the Bobby Sands gable further up the road.
A converted Gordon Street whiskey warehouse run since 2007 as a non-profit rehearsal and mentoring hub for young bands, with the free Northern Ireland Music Exhibition downstairs: Stiff Little Fingers, Ash, Van Morrison, Snow Patrol.
A two-floor bar on Berry Street behind CastleCourt where unamplified traditional sessions happen upstairs several nights a week — fiddles and bodhráns around a table, no stage, no PA, and locals well outnumbering visitors.