Fodor's Expert Review Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

Devoted to the province's social history, the excellent Ulster Folk and Transport Museum vividly brings the past to life and is a 20-minute drive east of Belfast. The museum first invites you to visit Ballycultra—a typical Ulster town of the early 1900s—which comes alive thanks to costumed guides who practice such regional skills as lace making, sampler making, spinning, weaving, wood turning, forgework, printing, open-hearth cooking, carpentry, basket making, and needlework. The setting is evocative: a score of reconstructed buildings moved here from around the region, including a traditional weaver's dwelling, terraces of Victorian town houses, an 18th-century country church, a village flax mill, a farmhouse, and a rural school. The museum also houses special collections and archives of interest to researchers on topics such as folklife, Ulster dialect, an oral history of linen, and radio and television archives of BBC Northern Ireland. Across the main road (by footbridge) is the beautifully designed Transport Museum, where exhibits include locally built airplanes and motorcycles, as well as the iconoclastic car produced by former General Motors whiz kid John DeLorean in his Belfast factory in 1982. The Transport Museum also houses the TITANICa exhibition, which tells the story of the liner's construction in Belfast and what life was like on board. The museum is on the 70 acres of Cultra Manor, encircled by a larger park and recreation area.